


300 Days of Clarence

by BleedingInk



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Human, Angst, Depression, Drug Use, Eventual Romance, F/M, Grief, Homelessness, Minor Character Death, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Overdosing, Panic Attacks, Past Abuse, Recovery, Slow Burn, Soup Kitchens, Therapy, Unsafe Sex, Violence, brief Meg/Lucifer, past Ruby/Meg
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-23
Updated: 2018-09-18
Packaged: 2019-04-06 18:38:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 97,020
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14063010
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BleedingInk/pseuds/BleedingInk
Summary: Meg is not used to not get away with hers, so when she’s sentenced to a year of probation and community service for a DUI, she’s decided to be as uncooperative as possible. However, the owner of the shelter where she’s supposed to serve her sentence turns out to be a lot harder to annoy than she thought. Castiel Milton is a gentle, patient man with a heart of gold who lives to help others, and for reasons Meg can’t quite understand, that seems to include her. Slowly, his kindness begins to win her over and Meg finds that, for the first time in a long time, she’s willing to open up to someone.





	1. Christmas

The place looked like a dumpster.

Meg stared at it from across the street while she finished her cigarette. The smoke she blew in the air mixed with her condensed breathing. She kept an arm around her body to hug herself and sometimes kicked the ground when she felt her feet getting numb. It wasn't snowing yet, but a few small, weak flakes fell from the morning sky at irregular intervals, carried away by the wind and melting as soon as they landed on the wet cement or on her clothes.

She should have brought a thicker jacket or maybe not have forgotten her fucking gloves, but she had left in a hurry. Now she regretted it because she already knew that she was going to be late. It wouldn't have made any difference if she had stopped for two extra minutes to find her gloves. But then again, it wasn't her fault that she was standing in the middle of the street instead of inside the ugly, dumpster looking two stories building in front of her.

The facade was white, or it had been white at some point. Not it was an ugly shade of grey, with the paint decaying after what must have been years of exposure to the weather, giving the entire place the look of an abandoned, sad little dumpster stuck between a grocery store that was already closed and another residential building that had part of the roof caved in, walls covered in graffiti and several broken windows. The dumpster building's windows were intact, but they had thick gray bars similar to the ones on the entrance. The result was that the place looked a little bit like an informal prison, and a sad one at that.

Even the name of the place, scribbled in letters atop of the door, were sad: black and squared and a little faded, but still mostly legible: "St. Michael's Kitchen Soup and Shelter". Meg was sure that if St. Michael had a saying on that, he would have refused to put his name on such a pathetic slump.

She finished her cigarette, threw the stub on the floor and stepped on it before crossing the street and pulsing the intercom again. The same stern-looking woman with auburn as before appeared and threw her the same suspicious glance as before.

"I finished," Meg said simply.

The woman narrowed her eyes at her, but this time she opened the door and let her in.

The interior of the building was at least a slight improvement than it's facade: the reception was warm thanks to a heater and painted with beige colors, with a large oak desk on the center and a Christmas tree to the side. There double doors behind the woman's desk and Meg presumed that was where the fun happened. But the woman pointed at another door to the left instead.

"This is Castiel's office," she informed Meg as she opened for her. "I'll tell him you're here."

Meg marched inside without a word and didn't even flinch when the woman closed the door behind her. She wasn't going to give anyone the satisfaction of letting them see how much she wanted to run out of this place immediately.

Castiel's office was sort of mess: there were mountains of boxes, papers and folders piled up on the desk and the floor. The walls were lined up with shelves that contained what looked like very old, worn out books, except for a single space on the wall that was occupied with a board where the office's owner had pinned what seemed to be various children's drawings and some pictures.

Meg had just taken a step to look at it closer when the door swung open and in walked the man that she had come to see.

"Megan Masters?" he said. His voice was deep and raspy, almost like he was recovering from a cold.

Meg eyed him up and down. He wasn't what she expected. Then again, with a name like "Castiel Milton", she wasn't exactly sure what she was expecting.

He was a tall man, probably in his early thirties, though the slight stubble on his cheeks and shin and the circles underneath his eye made him look much older. He was wearing brown slacks and a blue wool vest and (Meg arched an eyebrow, but decided not to comment on it) a net over his dark hair. She nodded, not sure if she was supposed to say anything else besides that.

“Please, sit down,” he said, indicating the chair in front of his desk. He walked around it, sat as well and started shifting through the papers on his desk. “You’re late.”

“I was here on time,” Meg lied. “That demon you have guarding the door didn’t let me in because I had a cigarette.”

Castiel raised his eyes at her and Meg found out probably the one thing that made his face extraordinary: he had bright blue eyes that seemed to stare right through her. For a second or two he expected him to ask why she simply hadn’t turned off the cigarette, but he simply smiled instead.

“Yes, Ellen can be… very strict. But since you’ll be here with us for quite a while, you’ll get used to her.”

Meg gave her an uncompromising smile. She wasn’t sure she would be able to “get used” to anything about that sad, sad building, but she figured it was best to keep quiet about that.

“Anyway,” Castiel continued, finally finding the file that he had been looking for, “your case is quite unusual, Megan…”

“Meg,” she corrected him automatically. ‘Meg’ was what her friends called her and she wouldn’t consider Castiel Milton her friend by any means, but ‘Megan’ was what her pompous stepfather called her and she preferred to avoid anything that reminded her of him.

“Meg,” Castiel accepted with no problem. “As I was saying, usually when we are sent someone who has to do community services they only have to do a very low amount of hours that they can complete within a few weeks. You… will be serving 300 days.”

“Yep,” Meg sighed. She searched the pockets of her jacket and took out her pack of cigarettes and her lighter. “Judge figured it would help me grow some empathy.”

“Smoking isn’t allowed in the building,” Castiel told her. “We’ve had issues with it before. I suppose I don’t have to tell you alcohol and drugs aren’t allowed either.”

“Always worth the extra clarification,” Meg replied, with a sharp smirk, but she did put away her cigarettes. Something about the way Castiel spoke commanded authority, even if he did look a little bit ridiculous with the net in his head. His eyes narrowed a little bit in suspicion.

“You were caught driving heavily intoxicated. You crashed a car and caused costly damages to public property,” he pointed out. “Part of your sentence is that you must seek therapy and remain clean and sober…”

“Yes, and of course I’m going to do that,” Meg said, forcing out a chuckle. “It was just a joke. Don’t get your panties in a twist.”

Castiel’s eyes didn’t become wider. He didn’t seem to trust her words and well, Meg couldn’t really blame him for it. She wouldn’t believe her either.

“Yes, well.” He cleared his throat and changed the topic. “It seems that, unless circumstances change, you will be with us for about a year, working a half shift from Mondays to Saturdays. That should leave you plenty of time for your classes…”

“Classes?” Meg repeated, frowning.

“It… it says in your file that you’re enrolled in college…?” Castiel pointed out.

“Oh, yeah, that. I think I might be dropping out,” Meg said, with a little shrug. “You know, take the time to recover and whatever.”

“That sounds great. If you really think that is what will be best for you…”

“So what exactly am I going to be doing here?”

Castiel opened his mouth as if he intended to continue what he was saying, but then he closed it again. He probably thought it was rude of Meg to interrupt him like that, but then again, most people thought Meg was a pretty rude person. There was not much she could do about it.

“Well, that will be determined on a day to day basis,” he explained. “We’re a small team of volunteers and we all do pretty much everything, from classifying donations to offering advice to people. There’s always something to do, so don’t worry. You won’t spend a single idle day here.”

He had a strange way of speaking, with a certain cadence to it that was odd, but not exactly unpleasant. There seemed to be nothing unpleasant about this guy and that immediately made Meg put her guard up. People who made an effort to seem particularly nice were always creeps with something to hide.

“Sounds peachy,” she said. She didn’t care if Castiel could sense the sarcasm in her voice. “So… do I start right now?”

“Yes. Christmas is always an all hands on deck situation,” Castiel explained. “Right now, we’re preparing tonight’s dinner and fixing the toys we will give to the little ones. But I promise, not every day is this hectic.” He stood up and gestured towards the door. “Come on, we’ll find you something to do.”

“Will this something mean I’ll have to be standing for long?” Meg asked.

Castiel looked down at her high heel boots and for the first time, Meg saw a slight reaction of annoyance in his up until now blank face.

“We’ll see that it doesn’t,” Castiel said. “In the future, please try wearing sensible shoes.”

“Is there a dress code of some kind here?” she asked him, crooking an eyebrow.

“No, but you might be more comfortable if you do,” he said, with a shrug.

He made it sound as if he didn’t particularly cared whether Meg wore sensible shoes or not and that, at least, sounded a little bit more honest. Meg decided she would keep on wearing high heels out of spite anyway.

Castiel headed for the door and extended his hands towards the handle, but at the last second he turned around to give Meg one last warning:

“Whatever you do, please don’t criticize the way Missouri runs the kitchen,” he said. “She is our best cook by far and she… doesn’t suffer fools gladly.”

“Glad to know we’ve just met and you already consider me a fool,” Meg pointed out.

Castiel didn’t laugh at her wonderful joke.

“I’m saying it for your own good,” he insisted. “If you don’t have a problem with her, you shouldn’t have a problem with anyone else here.”

He opened the door and waited for her to march outside before he closed it. Ellen threw them a glance from her chair behind the reception’s desk, but didn’t say a word as Castiel led Meg past the double doors.

“This is where the people we serve eat,” Castiel clarified, as if it was necessary: the place had long, metal tables with plastic chairs around. It reminded Meg of her school cafeteria, only a little sadder, despite the walls decked with wreaths and plastic Santa Claus. “We serve breakfast from six to eleven in the morning and dinner from seven to ten. We receive people until one in morning or until we have no more beds. Those are on the second floor,” he added, pointing at a stairs on the side of the diner. “However, if people want to use the bathroom or shower facilities, they can go up at any time during the day. But there aren’t allowed more than ten minutes alone up there.”

“I thought this was a shelter, not a prison,” Meg commented.

“It is. We also refuse to provide a safe place where drug addicts can shoot up safely,” Castiel pointed out. “We could lose our funding that way.”

“Noted,” Meg said, with a smirk. It was really hard to argue with that logic.

“Through that door, there’s the basement,” Castiel explained. “We stack our donations there and we classify if they’re usable or not. Mostly we receive can food and old clothes that need to be sawn or fixed before they can be reused. The winter months are especially busy with that sort of work. People donate a lot in the Christmas spirit.” The last part came out with a little tinge of bitterness in his voice and a small roll of his eyes. Meg took note, but didn’t comment on it. “Anyway, and here’s the kitchen.”

There was a white counter, exactly like the one in her high school, with a cart full of plastic trails parked to the side. Castiel guided her past that counter and into another pair of double doors.

It was like stepping into a madhouse that was also hot as hell.

There were at least three stoves and they were all on, with boiling pots and pans over every single open flame. There was also large tables were people were chopping vegetables or meat or mixing ingredients, all while they talked so loudly over each other, or ran into the refrigerators to retrieve things from inside them or threw even more things into the boiling pots. Meg calculated there was at least a dozen people there, of different genders, races and ages.

But the woman who seemed to be directing everything was a large black woman with an apron and a hairnet very similar to the one Castiel was still wearing. She had a large wooden spoon that she used to alternatively mix the pot in front of her and point at the people who were working around.

“Jo, I’m gonna need more tomatoes. Patience, those eggs should be ready by now. Take them out or they’ll go green. Garth, check if the oven is hot enough and put the turkey in. NOT ANOTHER STEP, GIRL!”

All the activity and noise in the kitchen ceased at once as the half dozen people there turned around to look at them. Meg froze right where she was and automatically lifted her hands in the air as if the spoon that was pointing at her was a gun. The woman (Meg assumed that was the famous Missouri) glared at her with dark eyes that went up and down her body, as if he was assessing her.

“Nobody enters my kitchen without a hairnet,” she said. “You know the rules, Castiel.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Castiel replied. He put a hand on Meg’s shoulder and gave her a little push as if to encourage her to walk inside. “I just wanted to introduce her. This is Meg Masters. She’s here for her community service.”

“Isn’t she a little…?” one guy started asking, but the blonde girl by his side elbowed his wrists and shook her head to keep him quiet.

“Well, now you’ve made your presentations,” said Missouri. “Give her an apron and get her peeling some potatoes. We’ve got a lot to do before tonight.”

“Yes, ma’am,” Castiel repeated even though, technically, he was the boss. “Right this way.”

There were only two unused aprons hanging from the wall. Castiel gave one to Meg and started the process of tying up.

“I’m not very good at cooking,” Meg confessed. Despite not being extremely happy to be there, Meg decided to be honest in this instance. There seemed to be a multitude of sharp and hot objects in that kitchen and she would very much prefer not to get anywhere near them.

“Don’t worry, I’m not either,” Castiel said, grabbing the last hairnet. “Just follow Missouri’s instructions and you should be fine. Go peel potatoes over there with Donna and Benny.”

He went to put the net on but at the last second he realized he was already wearing one. He froze and blinked for a couple of seconds as he assimilated the fact that he had conducted the entirety of Meg’s interview with that on his head. He grimaced, but said nothing about it as he passed Meg the hairnet and went off to do something around the kitchen.

Meg took her damn sweet time tucking her hair underneath it, wincing now and then as she did. She didn’t like this idea of spending the afternoon looking like a lunch lady, and the fact the other two designated potato-peelers (a burly man with a beard and a very calm demeanor and a chubby blonde woman) also looked like lunch ladies was of very little consolation to her.

The blonde woman, however, didn’t seem to notice Meg’s growing misery at the moment.

“Howdy! My name is Donna, and this Benny. It’s so nice to meet you!” she said with a heavy Minnesotan accent. “Also, Merry Christmas to you!”

“Hi,” Meg muttered. She grabbed a peeler and a potato and stared at it, not sure how to begin. She spied Benny out of the corner of his eyes: the man moved his large hands, expertly removing the peel in a single long spiral while he hummed to himself happily.

“We’re so happy to have you on board,” Donna said. “All the team is here. Well, minus Jody and the girls, but they’ll be showing up later, I think. And of course, the Trans said they would come too. Linda and her son Kevin, you ever met them, Benny?”

“We’ve crossed paths,” Benny said, with a shrug. He didn’t seem bothered at all by Donna’s chatter, probably already used to it.

“It’s gonna be the best Christmas we’ve had in a while,” Donna continued, still with the same happy tone as before. “You’re so lucky that you arrive just on time to join us, I’m sure you will enjoy it very much…”

“You’re doing that wrong,” Benny interrupted. It was so sudden and Donna’s talking had distracted her so much that it took a second for Meg to realize that he was talking to her. “You’re putting too much pressure into it and cutting too much of the potato. You just need to cut the peel.”

Meg glared at him.

“I know how to cut a potato, thank you,” she said, proudly.

Benny opened his mouth, perhaps to protest again, but in the end, he decided to keep quiet. All the better for Meg. This Donna person talked enough for the three of them, going on and on about what a wonderful time of the year it was and how much she just loved everything and wasn’t life great and…

A sharp pain cut through Meg’s hand. She let out a whimper as she dropped the peeler and the potato and stepped back from the table. A fine red line appeared on her skin, stinging the inside of her palm and dripping down her wrist, staining the sleeve of her shirt.

“Oh, darn it! Oh, no!” Donna exclaimed. “Castiel!”

Benny acted before Castiel showed up. He grabbed a napkin and extended it towards Meg.

“Press it tight!”

Meg had barely had time to obey him when both Castiel and Missouri approached them to see what had happened. Missouri immediately wrinkled her nose.

“Get her out of here before she bleeds all over the place!”

“It’s just a scratch,” Meg said, rolling her eyes. “It’s not as if it will make this place any dirtier.”

She must have known that was a mistake, because Missouri had time to glare at her before Castiel stepped in the middle of the two.

“There’s a first aids kit in my office. Come with me.”

He extended his hand to grab her by the elbow, but Meg stepped back before he could touch her. The last thing she needed right now was for this patronizing as hell guy to treat her like she was a child who couldn’t hold her own ground. She stuck her chin up in the air and strode towards the door, ignoring all the looks from the people in the kitchen and without checking if Castiel was following her.

It turned out he was only a few steps behind her. He reached her at the entrance of his office and opened the door for her. What a gentleman.

“You should have been more careful,” he commented as he looked through the drawers of his desk. “We really can’t afford any accidents today, Meg.”

“Well, sorry I’m such a burden to you,” she groaned.

“That’s not what I meant.” He put the kit on the desk and extracted bandages and a disinfectant.

“What did you mean, then?”

Castiel approached her and knelt in front of the chair where she was sitting.

"I meant that you should be more careful," he stated, matter-of-factly.

Meg watched him closely while he worked on her hand. He wasn't bad looking now that he wasn't wearing that ridiculous hairnet. His blue eyes were cold and he scowled too much for her taste.

But he definitely wasn't bad looking. She found herself wondering what it would take to get him into bed with her. Just to make things interesting around a place where everything was posing to be terribly dull.

He finished tying up the bandages and examined his work carefully.

"There you go," he determined.

Meg flexed her fingers and smiled at him.

"Aren't you sweet?" she asked. "And where did you learn to do this? Were you a doctor or something?"

He didn't answer her question or her compliment and he didn't smile back. His face was as blank as it had been before when he opened the door once more.

"I think it's best if you stay away from the kitchen for now," he said. "Grab your jacket."

"Are you letting me go early?" Meg asked.

"Do you have somewhere to be?" he shot back. "A family dinner or something?"

Meg could have lied and said that yes, she should be home early with the family that loved and supported her and wanted her nearby for the holidays. But she was too slow and she realized that the pause between his question and her answer had simply gone on for too long for him to really believe her.

"It doesn't hurt to hope, does it?" she said, with a chuckle.

Castiel obviously didn't share her sense of humor.

"The basement is cold. There's a heater, but it's not enough to really warm up the room."

"Oh, so you're exiling me to Siberia."

"I'm doing you a favor. If I had to choose between Missouri's anger and Siberia, I'd choose the latter."

His tone made it impossible to tell if he was joking or not.

The basement's stairs creaked awkwardly with every step she took, but Castiel told her to ignore it. She still made sure to grab unto the rail and take every step carefully.

The scene was practically the same as in the kitchen, minus the heat from the stoves, the clinking of knives and the incessant chatter. The basement was also a lot darker and just as Castiel had warned her, colder. The people working in the basement were huddled up around a long table. All of them looked voluminous and heavy, and it took Meg a moment to realize it was because they were all wearing jackets or parkas. Some of them even had scarves around their neck and fingerless gloves.

Just like in the kitchen, they all stopped and looked up when they heard Castiel come in. He introduced them to Meg just like he had upstairs.

"Ah, great. Another one for the Santa's elves team," a brown-skinned girl said, smiling at her wide.

"Excuse me?" Meg asked.

A tall guy chuckled and pointed at the empty chair next to him. It was the closest one and it was right next to the heater, so Meg immediately took it. When she looked towards the stairs, she noticed Castiel had silently left her to fend for herself there.

"I'm Sam," the guy told her, extending his barely warm hand towards her. He had long brown hair that almost grazed his shoulders and dimples in his smile. Meg marked him as another possible conquest. "Nice to meet you. So, what we're doing here is, basically, we're wrapping up the gifts will be giving out during the dinner."

Meg glanced at the wrapping paper, ribbons, scissors and tape extended around the table. There were also around half a dozen people there, and they were all moving their hands as they chat amiable. She spotted cheap-looking toys, dolls and little cars as well as scarves and coats among the things the "Santa's elves" were working on. Some of them were fixing them, sawing a patch here or there or gluing a missing eye in a teddy bear.

"Oh, wow, I really hope I don't slow you down, guys," she said, lifting up her bandaged hand. "I just had a little accident in the kitchen."

"Ah, did Missouri exile you?" another guy ask and there was a chorus of laughter around the table. Meg forced herself to act kindly, because maybe that way they would let her sit in silence and do nothing with them.

"Something like that."

"No problem. You can help me," Sam said. "Just cut the tape and hold it while I wrap the presents, okay?"

It was simple enough. It was also boring as hell. Meg sat in her chair with pieces of tape in her fingers and looked around, trying to prevent her brain from shutting down out. There was a short redheaded girl with a pixie haircut talking to a freckled guy in one of the corners of the table. The brown-skinned girl that had asked if Meg had been exiled worked alongside a guy who was very obviously her twin brother. At their side, a curly-haired boy who couldn't be older than seventeen or eighteen was gluing a small wheel to a toy car and looked super concentrated on it.

"So, why are you here, Meg?" Sam asked casually.

Lying that she had always had an interest in helping the less fortunate was useless. Sam would find out in three seconds worth of gossip that wasn't the case.

"To serve my sentence."

The curly-haired boy laughed and looked up at her.

"Same," he said. "Believe it or not, I'm a tough, dangerous criminal."

"Aiden, please. You were caught graffitting a wall to ask some girl out," the brown-skinned girl said.

"You would not believe how many people will confuse an act of love for vandalism."

"Did she even say yes?"

"I don't see what that has got to do with anything, Alicia!"

There was some laughter and the conversation kept flowing, but luckily it was a lot more lowkey and calmer and no one tried to convince her this was the best job in the world that she could be doing right at that moment. It was almost worth it the cut in her hand.

“So how are you liking being part of the Santa’s elves?” Alicia’s twin brother, whose name Meg had just learned was Max, asked her.

“It’s actually quite nice here, despite the lack of heaters,” Meg admitted. “Much quieter too.”

“What do you mean?”

“Well, you know that blonde woman? The chubby one?”

“Donna?” Sam asked.

“Yeah, what’s the deal with her?” Meg asked. “It’s like she couldn’t be quiet for ten seconds or something.”

She thought her observation would be met with laughter or at the very least nods of understanding. Instead, suddenly every person in the basement was glaring at her as if she had just personally kicked their puppies.

“What?” Meg asked, looking at everybody a little confused.

Max and Alicia picked up their chairs and moved closer to the other guy who hadn’t introduced himself and the redheaded girl, who rolled their eyes in unison and Meg and went back to their work. Aiden threw a glance that was downright pitiful at her before turning his attention back to his work.

“What did I say?” Meg asked Sam, because he was the only one who hadn’t suddenly moved away from her as if she had the plague. He was giving her some major side-eye, though.

“Well… Donna's kind of a hero,” he explained. “She got shot in the line of duty a couple of years ago. She got a medal and they moved her to desk job.”

“Oh,” Meg muttered.

“She’s also like, the nicest person ever,” Aiden added, not even pretending that he hadn’t been eavesdropping. “So… not cool of you to bad mouth her.”

Well, that was just peachy. She had insulted a hero cop and made herself a pariah just when she thought she had found the cool (or at least tolerable) people who worked there. Meg was definitely not having the best beginning at this whole charity thing.

Despite Sam being as clearly irritated as the others, he smiled at her gently.

"Don't worry. It might take a while until you get to know everybody..."

"Don't patronize me," she snapped at him. "I don’t care. It's not like I came here to make friends."

Sam blinked at her surprised, but he muttered "Okay" under his breath and went back to do his thing. Now and then he made a comment, but Meg stubbornly refused to answer to any of them with anything other than hums or monosyllables. In the end, he gave up and went back to making small talk and jokes with the others.

It was better that way. Meg really had nothing in common with any of these people and the sooner they learned to leave her the fuck alone, the better they would all get along.

Finally, after what felt like hours, all the gifts were wrapped and shoved into burlap sacks, because nothing said "festive" that carrying something that literally looked like it could contain parts of a body.

Meg thought the idea was funny, but she had no one to share it with. Sam only threw her a mildly confused look when she quietly chuckled to herself.

"Man, this year is going to be the best," said the guy who hadn't talked to Meg before. She had since learned his name was Dean and he was Sam's brother. Was everybody in that damn refuge related to one another?

"Yup," the redheaded girl, whose name was Charlie, agreed. "I think we're gonna have the best Santa, too."

Meg didn't have time to feel curious as to what exactly that meant when the basement door opened and Castiel came down again.

"Is everything ready here?"

"Aye, aye, captain," Alicia said, placing a bag on top of the table. "And we're ready to start dressing up too."

Castiel looked at the bag and let out a deep sigh.

"I still maintain that Sam or Benny would have been better for this job," he grumbled, and everyone around him laughed as if it was the funniest joke they’ve ever heard.

Alicia opened the bag and started taking out what seemed to Meg like a very cheap Santa costume, complete with what seemed to be a fake pregnant belly and a beard made of cotton. There were also elves' costumes: hats adorned with pointy ears and stripped red and green leggings and equally green dresses.

Max picked one and held it against his body.

"I'm still pretty angry you guys didn't pick me to be one of Santa's elves," he complained, as he danced around with the dress. "I could have been pretty darn cute, don't you think so?"

"You just want to play dress up," Alicia accused him, snatching the dress away from him.

"Oh, and you don't?"

They kept fighting while the others laughed at their shenanigans. Meg watched them from the spot where she had leaned against the wall. She truly didn't understand how come they were all so giddy after they had spent all afternoon working. It was cold, she was hungry and she wanted to go home. Maybe she could slip unnoticed if she was quiet enough…

"Meg?" Castiel called her.

Meg already had one foot on the stairs. She closed her eyes and cursed internally before she turned around. Everyone was staring at her in sudden silence, as if they had caught her about to commit an unspeakable plan. She forced out a smile, trying to look innocent.

"I was... I mean, it seems you got it all covered here."

The twins shot her looks of skepticism and Sam raised an eyebrow. But Castiel was either too dumb to realize what she'd been trying to do or too polite to mention it.

"You're right, I think the boys an eye can finish packing the presents and Alicia and Charlie still have to put on their costumes," he said. "Why don't you go to see if Missouri needs any help?"

Meg was tempted to ask if that meant her exile was over, but she didn't feel like joking anymore. That could be interpreted as her trying to be nice and she definitely had lost any interest she might have had in making friends there had vanished. She supposed she still could have made a run for it, but the bitch that was sitting in the front desk could've spotted her and besides, she had no doubt that Missouri would inform Castiel of her running away and Castiel would, in turn, inform her probation officer.

She was trapped.

And on top of it all, Missouri didn't seem any less pissed at her when she showed up in the kitchen.

"We're setting up the tables. Do you think you can do that, at least?"

"Well, I don't know," Meg said, her tongue moving faster than her brain and her voice dripping with sarcasm. "My hand still hurts real bad."

Missouri's dark eyes were like daggers.

"Don't try to be funny, girl," she told her. "I don't like slackers, so you better get to it."

And as if to punctuate her words, she threw a bunch of napkins at her. Actual, cloth napkins. That seemed a little too fancy for a diner and refuge for homeless people, but Meg decided to just roll with it.

The blonde girl Missouri had called Jo and the two skinny guys were setting the tablecloths and distributing silverware around. Again, actual silverware, not plastic.

This place must have been better funded that the facade gave away.

"Hey, new girl," one of the skinny guys greeted her when she approached them with the napkins. "How are you holding on?"

Meg didn't make the mistake of being honest again.

"I'm... doing fine," she said.

The three gave her a look that clearly showed they weren't buying it.

"Missouri is giving you a hard time, huh?" Jo said.

"She... seems very strict," Meg said, trying to find a more neutral term for what she thought. Since she wasn't sure who she could insult without getting into trouble, she decided the best course of action was to mind her words, at least for the time being.

The skinny guys exchanged a look and they both laughed as if Meg had just made a very funny comment.

"She was a little stressed with all the Christmas feast preparations," Jo said, with an understanding nod. She stopped distributing silverware around and put a hand on Meg's shoulder, as if to console her. "Don't worry, she's a lot nicer on normal days."

"Good to know."

Meg continued placing the napkins while avoiding eye contact with the others, lest they assumed she wanted to chat. But she could hear the skinny guys whispering among themselves and caught what sounded a lot like "No, you ask her!" at one point.

Finally, one of them approached her.

"Hey, new girl... can I call you Meg?"

“That’s my name.”

“We were just wondering, because… no offense, but you’re not the usual… uh, age, for people who come here to serve their community service,” he said.

“Ash!” Jo scolded him.

“I’m just saying. Usually we get like, troubled teens and stuff,” Ash continued despite Jo’s glare. “You’re a bit too… old?”

“Your point being?” Meg asked, crooking an eyebrow.

“Well… we were wondering,” the other skinny guy repeated. “How you ended up here, we mean.”

Meg let the silence drag on for several seconds, just so these guys would understand just how insensitive it had been to ask that question. They didn’t back down, though: they kept waiting for her to say something while Jo groaned and shook her head as she continued setting the tables.

“My step-dad bribed the judge so he would let me go with a slap on the wrist,” Meg said, finally.

That wasn’t the true. Well, not entirely. But the way the guys’ eyes widened at that revelation and how Jo turned her head towards her made it worth it.

“But… what did you do?” Ash insisted.

Meg turned around and placed another napkin down without another word. If everyone was oh, so tight in that poorly run charity operation and such good friends, it was a matter of time before Castiel started gossiping about her to everyone else and they got their answer.

The guys seemed like they were ready to insist, but then Ellen burst into the diner.

“We have a line of people waiting outside and it’s freezing cold,” she informed them. “You better have everything ready.”

After that, no one had time to interrogate Meg any further: the doors opened five minutes later and suddenly the diner was flooded by so many people Meg doubted there were enough chairs for all of them. But Jo, ash and the other guy (Garth, apparently his name was Garth, and really, what kind of name as that?) sprang into action, greeting all the people coming in with smiles and handshakes.

Meg stayed next to the wall, watching them, a little at lost about what to do. They were all sort of races and ages (even children, an astonishing amount of children) but there was one thing that they all had in common: their clothes. They looked tattered and worn out, with patches and stains that revealed how long they had been wearing them. Garth, Ash and Jo took their coats at the door like they were the most elegant garments and hanged them from the hooks in the wall, all the while making small talk, like they were old friends and family arriving just in time for the Christmas dinner.

She was so overwhelmed by the sudden crowd, she missed another chance to slither away. When Jo spotted her standing by the wall, she cut off the conversation she was having with a woman with a hideous hat and ran up to her.

“Go tell Missouri they’re here,” she instructed her. “It’s show time.”

“It wasn’t show time before?” Meg asked.

She was wrong about that, as it would turn out. As soon as she got into the kitchen and said that people were walking in, Missouri’s intensity turned up all the way to eleven and the kitchen became a blurry of activity. Meg wasn’t sure how, but she was handed a ladle and another hairnet and told to serve the soup and then the mashed potatoes. The other volunteers (some of which must have arrived when she was in the basement, because she didn’t remember seeing them before) kept running in and out of the kitchen to pick up full dishes and bringing them back empty.

“Ash, Max, new girl!” Missouri said at one point, pointing at them. “You’ll be on dishwasher duty and you better leave everything impeccable, you heard me?”

Ash made a mocking military salute and guided Meg to a sink where all the used casseroles, pots and knives that were used to cook the Christmas dinner were piled up in a barely balanced tower.

“Well, we better get started,” Max said, rolling his sleeves up. “I don’t want to miss out Santa.”

Meg looked at the dark soapy waters and suddenly regretted having her manicure done the day before. Luckily for her, the boys handed her a cloth and put her last in the assembly line: Ash washed, Max rinsed and Meg dried and put away. And they did it all while singing _Deck the Halls_. Well, Ash and Max were singing: Meg was fighting a growing migraine, the desperate need for a cigarette and her aching feet.

Her annoyance must have shown up in her face, because Max elbowed her gently.

“Not feeling the spirit, new girl?” he asked her. Meg looked at him with an arched eyebrow and he laughed once more. “Come on, don’t take it so personal. We gave you a hard time before, but you’ll get to know everybody.”

“Why would I want that?”

The question came to her mouth before she even realized she was making it and how it would sound, but she was done. She was tired and done pretending to be nice and that she would be there being ordered around if she’d had any choice in the matter. Ash and Max stared at her, a little shocked at her reaction, but Meg simply looked away and continued drying in hostile silence until Benny brought another stack of them.

“Leave those for later,” he told them. “Santa is about to make his entry.”

Ash and Max dropped the dishes they were doing right then and ran towards the entry as if Santa was going to bring something for them personally. Meg wouldn’t have followed them if it wasn’t because Benny eyed her.

“Aren’t you going to come?”

“Am I needed there?” Meg asked, not even attempting to hide her contempt.

“I don’t know,” Benny shrugged. “You might just see something magical, lil’ sistah.”

He then strode away as if he didn’t really cared whether Meg followed him or not. She huffed, dried her hands and went anyway, because like hell she was going to be the only sucker who kept working when everyone else was slacking.

The volunteers were now serving the dessert (chocolate pudding) and some of them had even sat on the tables along with the homeless. There was chatter and laughter that sounded way too loud for her exhausted mind along with the clatter of the spoons on the dishes. She spotted Donna speaking with a short-haired brunette woman who was standing next to a bearded man in a wheelchair. When the retired cop noticed her, she smiled and wave at Meg as if nothing had happened earlier.

Luckily for Meg, she didn’t have the chance to approach her and start talking, because the doors of the dining room burst opened and Castiel waddled in.

“Santa!” a little child exclaimed, jumping from his chair and pointing at him.

“Santa” extremely uncomfortable with the pregnant belly and he seemed to be about to fall over under the weight of the burlap sack. His beard looked far too white to be real and the red suit was more like a deep orange, as if it had been subtly bleached after being washed too many times.

The kids saw none of this, of course. They got up from the tables and ran towards Castiel screaming and trying to touch him, and in the blink of an eye, he and his “elves” (Charlie an Alicia in the green dresses with terrible hats and fake pointy ears) were surrounded by a horde of at least twenty kids, all screaming and trying to touch him.

Despite the chaos, something could be said about Castiel: he held his ground. He threw his head back and let out a pretty convincing belly laugh.

“Have you been nice this year, children?” he asked them. The kids cheered and raised his hands at him. “Very well, then. I’ve got presents for you and for your mommies and daddies too. Will you help me give them to them?”

It was as if he cast a magic spell on them. The little savages actually formed a line and waited patiently while “Santa” rummaged through his sacks. He gave them the toys that Meg had helped repair early, along with more practical things like coats, scarves and boots. Some of the kids broke down crying and had to hug “Santa” for several seconds before they calmed down and took their presents back to their table where their mothers or fathers were waiting for them.

“What do you think?” Benny asked, startling Meg. She hadn’t realized that he was standing next to her.

“Better than most mall Santas, I suppose,” Meg said with a shrug.

Benny chuckled.

“Ah, so you’re a common Grinch, aren’t you?”

“I always said the Grinch was misunderstood,” she shot back. “The guy just wanted one peaceful night.”

Benny tilted his head and stared at her, as if he was evaluating her.

“What?” Meg snapped after a few seconds of awkward silence had gone by.

“Just thinking that this might be just what you need, sistah’.”

“What the hell do you know about what I need?” she snapped at him. She could deal with the stupidity of everyone asking her personal questions and assuming she was useless, but the nerve of this guy…

Benny just shrugged as if Meg’s fury was no more impressive to him than a mosquito bite and refused to elaborate. Meg huffed and checked the time in her clock. She had been there since three o’clock in the afternoon and she couldn’t quite believe she had managed to make it that long without killing someone or herself.

“I’m gonna go,” she announced to Benny, glaring at him as if to defy him to make her stay.

“A’right. Please take out the trash while you do,” he said, not even looking at her.

Meg was tempted to ignore the black bags stationed next to the back door, but some strange impulse compelled her to take them out anyway. Perhaps because she wanted to somehow prove to Benny that she wasn’t the complete disaster he clearly thought he was. She was capable of following directions and still not make a single friend while she was there.

She threw the bags into the container in the alleyway imagining they were Benny’s body parts that she had just chopped and stood back for a seconds. She was cold and tired and she really, really wanted to go home and sleep until noon the next day. And dammit, she needed a drink so _badly_. She hadn’t brought her flask there because she wasn’t an idiot: if they caught her drinking during her service hours, she could kiss her lenient sentence goodbye. Just a cigarette would have to do for now.

She had only taken in the first puff when the backdoor opened again and Castiel stumbled outside. He was still wearing the ridiculous fat belly and the red suit and boots. At the very least he had taken off the terrible fake beard. He looked around quickly and his face became a mask of relief when he spotted her.

“Oh, great, you haven’t left yet,” he said, walking up to her.

“Nope. Still here being a nuisance,” Meg replied and took a long drag out of her cigarette. She wasn’t going to run away from him but she wasn’t going back inside either. “My shift is over.”

“I know. I just realized that I didn’t have the opportunity to invite you the staff’s dinner,” he explained. “We’ll eat Missouri’s food and drink eggnog… non-alcoholic, of course.”

“Pass,” Meg replied. She didn’t even have to think about it. And besides, it was kind of funny how her boss’ face fell a little after she said that.

But she was about to find out he wasn’t an easy man to deter.

“It’s a… tradition we have,” he continued saying. “It really helps us come close together as a team…”

“Didn’t you hear me? I said, _pass_ ,” Meg replied, speaking very slowly to see if that would help it get through his skull.

Castiel sighed.

“Benny warned me you’d probably say that,” he admitted. “But I really wanted to invite you anyway.”

“Why?” Meg asked. She wasn’t trying to sass him, she was genuinely confused. She had done nothing but drag her feet all day and she had insulted Donna. She was pretty sure he knew all about it by now. That Aiden kid looked like a real snitch.

“Because you’re going to be here for a while and I was really hoping we could be friends.”

Meg blew a ring of smoke right at his face. He barely even blinked at it.

“You wanna get in my pants?” she asked.

“No, of course not…”

“’Cause if you do, I’d prefer it if you just asked instead of trying to be all kind.”

“I’m not… trying to do that, Meg,” he replied, avoiding her gaze. “I just want to make you feel welcome here.”

And it might have been because he was standing in the cold in a paper thin Santa suit, but his cheeks were suddenly red. Meg silently rejoiced at managing to get a rouse out of the guy. He wasn’t as stoic as he pretended to be after all.

“You’re like a Clarence or something?” she told him, rolling her eyes. “You’re going to show me my worth or some shit?”

“I don’t know who Clarence is.”

“Whatever. You can stop it. I’d rather not pretend this is something either of us want.”

Castiel watched her in silence, but finally took a step back.

“Have it your way then.”

“I intend to,” Meg replied, dropping the cigarette butt to the floor and stepping on it as she headed outside of the alley.

“Merry Christmas.”

Meg turned around to tell him to go fuck himself, but Castiel had already retreated back inside.


	2. January

Winter was a bitch that year. It came too soon, with blizzards and snow and generally just turning the world to shit day in, day out. Meg woke up six days a week with a dull ache behind her eyes and the crushing realization that she would have to leave her comfortably warm nest of blankets, get dressed and interact with people. Most days she was tempted to take the half pill she had left abandoned on her night table the night before and go back to sleep, but if she wanted to keep on living on her mother’s dime, part of the agreement was that she had to serve her sentence.

So after a cup of strong black coffee and a cigarette (she would smoke a couple more before she arrived at St. Michael’s, because that was the only way to survive the six hours in which she was expected not to smoke), she got dressed, added some dark eyeliner to conceal the bags under her eyes and left her apartment. Usually it was much later than she should have left it to begin with, but Meg stubbornly refused to set an alarm or even walk faster when she left her small apartment. The asphalt was wet and the last thing she needed was slipping in a puddle and cracking her skull. And well, if the subway ran late (since she wasn’t allowed to even look at a car, per the terms of her sentence), that was out of her hands.

She also refused to wear “comfortable shoes”, no matter how many times Castiel insinuated she should or how many side-eyes she received from the other volunteers. If they had a problem with her walking a little taller than her, well, that was their issue, not hers.

She actually caught a short conversation between Jo and Charlie in the kitchen regarding her clothes and her aspect.

“And did you see the boots she wear?” Jo said, with a disapproving head shake. She was in charge of washing and rinsing the dishes while Charlie dried them out and put them away.

“How does anyone walk in those things?” Charlie agreed.

“Practice, mostly,” Meg replied as if she had been invited into that conversation all along. Both girls startled and Charlie almost drops the plate she had in her hand. “I’m going to take a smoke break, in case someone needs me.”

No one ever needed her. She took smoke breaks in the alleyway next to the dumpster every time she thought she could get away with it. It wasn’t exactly glamorous, sure, but at least out there, she could be alone with her thoughts. She didn’t have to hear anyone gossiping about her or, even worse, trying to engage on a conversation with her.

Every damn task was apparently done in pairs or in groups of three, whether it was cleaning the bathrooms, taking the sheets from the beds in the second floor to the Laundromat, cooking or just fucking mopping. Meg wouldn’t have mind (she could do the bare minimum that way and let whatever sucker had the misfortune of being her partner during that particular shift) if everybody didn’t try to act so damn _friendly_ all the time.

Donna Hanscum continued to be the worst offender, just because unlike everyone else, she wasn’t discouraged by Meg’s hostile silence or snappy answers to her near-constant chatter.

“… so I said to her ‘Oh, maybe a little bit on the tips’, and next thing we knew, whoopsie, she had cut way too much from one side. And now she had to cut from the other to make it even, right? But then she also…”

“Fascinating,” Meg interrupted. She might have come off as rude, but holy hell, she was seconds away from grabbing the bucket of water and throwing it at her head. “If it had been me, I would’ve get it right the first time just to get you out my saloon sooner.”

“You would think that would be the smartest business move,” Donna agreed. She either didn’t notice the insult or preferred to ignore it. “But no, she insisted over and over that try to keep fixing it…”

Meg eventually gave up and learned how to let her run her mouth without paying much attention to her words.

The only job that was apparently done by a single individual was being the receptionist. Meg would’ve loved to be assigned to that (sitting on her ass all day doing nothing but read gossip magazines? That was the dream!) but Castiel kept a regular rotation of three people who were all increasingly intimidating sitting behind the desk. There was Ellen, who still squinted her eyes at her whenever she walked in as if she was completely sure Meg was going to try and smoke again in front of her after the earful she got last time. But there was also Jody, a woman with short black hair who came in on Saturdays. She looked a lot less stern than Ellen… up until Meg graciously suck her foot in her mouth. Once again.

“How are we doing today, Meg?” Jody asked her politely as Meg signed her entry.

“Hoping those teen girls aren’t back,” Meg commented.

“Which ones?”

That should have put her on guard, but Meg had gone so long without complaining to someone that she didn’t notice.

“You know the blonde one and the brunette one?” she told Jody. “The ones who are always talking and giggling?”

“You mean my daughters?”

Meg slowly raised her head at her, suddenly wondering why she even bother to speak sometimes.

“I mean… they are very good girls… they word… a lot.”

“Yeah,” Jody said, squinting at her not unlike Ellen did sometimes. “They are good girls.”

Jody never asked her how she was from then on, only greeting her with a curt “good evening”. Meg decided that while everybody seemed to be gossiping about her, she was going to keep her mouth quiet from then on about anybody else. Not only everyone knew everybody there, apparently they come there as family. She discovered that Dean and Sam were brothers and that Missouri sometimes brought along her granddaughter Patience. Meg was glad to find that out before she said anything about her, since Missouri was the person who most often had access to sharp and lethal weapons around St. Michael’s.

Not the only one, mind you. The third receptionist (Meg only saw him once, but decided that was more than enough) was a tall, dark-skinned man with a goatee that looked a little like he came out of a sports magazine. Meg might have hit on him if it wasn’t because of his supremely hostile expression.

Dean didn’t have that problem at all.

“Hey, Gordie!” he greeted him one night when he, Sam and Meg were on their way out.

“It’s Gordon,” the man corrected him as he dropped his bag on the desk and walked around to sit down.

“Another night holding the fort?” Dean asked him.

“Oh,” Gordon smiled, and he looked even more sinister when he did. He opened his bag and Meg jumped a little: he extracted a small handgun that he started loading as if it was the most ordinary thing in the world. “You know it.”

“Well, we’ll leave you to it. See you!” Dean greeted him, unfazed.

Meg managed to hold it together until they were on the street.

“Why the hell did he have a gun?” she asked the brothers.

“He’s doubles as the security guard,” Dean explained, shrugging.

That didn’t exactly answer Meg’s question, so she turned towards Sam.

“Couple of years back, Cas had some… problems,” Sam told her.

“Problems?”

“Yeah, with like, drug dealers,” Dean clarified, again in that same casual tone, as if he was commenting that it might snow again that night. “Cas kept a lot of their clients off the street. He even helped a couple of them get clean. The dealers… didn’t care for that.”

“They threatened him, but they got arrested,” Sam continued. “Regardless, Gordon always brings a gun, just in case.”

Meg was suddenly very aware of the fact the shelter had a gate that the receptionist had to open for her and that the streets ahead of them only had a couple of lights on, while the rest were either broken or disconnected. Sam must have sensed her discomfort, because he asked:

“Hey, do you want us to walk you to your subway station?”

Meg snapped out of her fatalistic thoughts and shook her head.

“No, I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah, don’t worry.” She turned around and walked away as fast as her boots allowed her too.

“Goodnight to you too!” Dean screamed in her wake, his voice dripping with sarcasm.

Meg didn’t feel guilty about not saying goodbye to them, but she could have made her exit with a little more grace. She had rejected their help precisely because she didn’t want them to think she was scared, because she was supposed to project an aura of confidence and calm at all times. As if all of this was nothing but supremely dull to her (sometimes it genuinely was) and she had no interest in getting to know any of them. That way they didn’t show any interest in getting to know her and everybody could mind their own damn business.

So she really hoped the Winchester hadn’t noticed how she lost her nerves for a second there. And she also hoped they didn’t notice the small can of pepper spray she got on Amazon and hooked to her key chain the following week. If they did, they made no comment and everything went on as usual.

In a couple of weeks, she learned how to avoid the rush hours. St. Michael’s offered three meals a day: breakfast, lunch and dinner. The hours prior to that were always busy in the kitchen, so even when she showed up early, Meg sometimes took her sweet time smoking a cigarette across the street until it was time to start serving. It was much easier standing behind a counter, handing bottles of water and putting food on trays. The only thing she had to say was “Next!” and everyone was so busy they didn’t try talking to her.

That didn’t exclude her from other tasks, however.

“Well, since you showed up late, guess you’ll be doing the dishes,” Missouri told her, her dark eyes almost glimmering at the nerve of Meg showing up late. “And they better be spotless, you hear me?”

“Sir, yes, sir!” Meg replied, mimicking a military salute at her. Missouri didn’t appreciate her sense of humor at all.

Of all the other volunteers, she preferred Benny. The tall man never tried to start a conversation with her and even though he sometimes whistled or hummed to himself, but for the most part, he never tried talking to her when they were partnered. If it was up to her, Meg would’ve always showed up at the shelter whenever he was present, but he only seemed to be there a couple of times a week, mostly on the weekends. And well, it wasn’t like she kept a regular timetable either.

“Meg, can I have a word with you?” Castiel called her one time when she came in to work.

“Sure, Clarence,” she said. She hid away her surprise and calmly walked towards the office. “What’s up?”

Castiel closed the door behind her as she walked in. Of all the people whose names sometimes forgot, he was the only one who seemed to be there on a permanent basis. She saw him sometimes, cooking, helping serve the meals, fixing pipes or cleaning the bathrooms like everybody else. And sometimes he locked himself away in his office to do who knew what and she didn’t seem him in the entire day. But apart from a few courteous greetings, the longest conversation she had with the man continued to be the one they had on Christmas, so she had no idea what this was about.

“Please have a seat.”

“Am I in trouble or something?”

“No, nothing like that,” he promised her. “I just thought I needed to talk to you about your schedule.”

“What about my schedule?” Meg asked him. “I’ve been coming six hours six days a week…”

“Yes, but that’s exactly the problem. You’ve been coming whenever you pleased,” Castiel said. “I first thought there might be some pattern to it, but if there is I haven’t been able to discover it.”

“You’ve been monitoring when I come and go?” Meg asked, arching an eyebrow.

“Yes, to keep your probation officer informed,” Castiel replied.

Meg cringed at the idea that Castiel had been talking to Cesar. Nothing against the man, she just felt a little like she was at the center of a conspiracy she wasn’t aware of until then.

“In any case, you’ve been putting on the hours, but I feel it would be better if you kept regular shifts,” Castiel continued. “So we know when to expect you to be here and when not.”

"Why, though? It's not like you need me for something specific."

She reached inside her pocket and took out her pack of cigarettes. It was an instinctual, a need to have something to do with her hands, even though she knew it was forbidden. She went as far as to put the cigarette between her lips before Castiel stopped her.

"Please, don't smoke in here."

"Is that against the rules too?" Meg asked him.

"No, I'm just not fond of the smell."

Meg wondered for a second what he would do if she took out her lighter and turned it on anyway. Would he tell her to get out of his office? Would that be a way to escape this conversation and what it implied for her?

But she decided not to get in that much trouble just yet. She kept the unlit cigarette between her fingers, staring at Castiel defiantly to see if he told her to put it away.

Castiel continued talking as if he hadn't noticed.

"I told you on your first day here that everybody does everything as needed, but if you would like to have a more specific task assigned to you, let me know and I'm sure we can arrange it."

That was not the answer she was expecting. He was supposed to tell her that she needed to suck it up and accept this was the way things were done at St. Michael's, just so she could tell him she also had a way of doing things and he needed to deal with it. His flexibility and understanding was relly messing up with her plan to at least keep a semblance that she could still do whatever the hell she wanted despite everyone from her family to the judicial system placing so many restrictions on her.

She shifted awkwardly in her chair while Castiel kept talking:

"If you can't think of any right now, that's okay. But in the meantime I'm going to assign you to one of the fixed shifts. How does morning sound to you?"

It sounded terrible. Meg was never up before ten and she couldn't believe he had never noticed that. She stared at him with a crooked eyebrow until he sighed.

"We need more people at that time, Meg. The breakfast rush is always chaotic and we have to make sure everyone who stayed overnight is out so we can make the beds and clean the bathrooms. Most volunteers can't be here before noon..."

"Fine," Meg interrupted him with a huff. "You're the boss, you don't have to give me any explanations. Just say you want me to come at that time. It's not like I can tell you no."

Castiel tapped his fingers in his desk. He seemed a little annoyed that she had interrupted his little speech.

"Please, starting on Monday, be here at seven thirty."

It still didn't sound like an order. Deliberately slow, Meg put the cigarette between her lips, took the lighter from inside her jacket and held the flame against the tip. She inhaled deeply, letting the  smoke fill her lungs, and then exhaled slowly through her mouth so a small grey cloud would float over the desk and right into Castiel's face.

He remained unfazed. He opened one of his drawers, took out a glass ashtray and set it on the edge of the table near her.

"Join us when you're done with your break. Thank you," he said, as if she hadn't arrived fifteen minutes before.

This guy was weak, Meg decided as she let the ash fall on the carpet. With all his kindness and his "please" and "thank you". He couldn't even tell her to get the fuck out of his office if she was going to smoke.

She'd suspected as much. No matter what Dean and Sam said about his run-ins with drug lords or some shit, all that "helping those in need" and "like me I'm a good person" attitude he had going on could only meant two things: he was hiding something dark and terrible or he was just a huge pushover. She was a little disappointed it was the latter, but at least it meant she could keep pushing her limits and pretending that Castiel's assigning her to the morning shift was more of a... friendly suggestion.

In any case, he probably wouldn't like the kind of person Meg was in the mornings. She wasn't that likeable in the evenings either. When her shift ended and she went home, to that shitty small apartment that Crowley had _so generously_ agreed to pay for, to the empty quietness of her own head after dealing with people the entire day… she felt worse than at any point in the god damned shelter. She felt lonely. She felt bored.

So of course here was nothing left to do for her than hit the damn bottle. She wasn’t driving and wasn’t going anywhere, so why the hell shouldn’t she be allowed to drink in the privacy of her own damn place? She ordered herself a pizza or microwaved some ramen to eat in the couch while she binge-watched some mindless procedural TV show and washed it all down with three or four bottles of beer. Sometimes a shot of something stronger when she could afford it with her allowance. She couldn’t pay that with the credit card or Lilith would find out. If she still had trouble falling asleep, she had the pills she had stolen from Lilith’s bathroom last time she went home. She had to be careful with those, though, because she didn’t know when she would find the time to go back home and steal some more.

At some point, either the alcohol or the pills knocked her out into a black, dreamless sleep… sometimes even before the ugly thoughts caught up with her. Like she was a waste of space and how it was good thing that her dad was dead and her brother didn’t talk to her anymore because they would be just furious to see what she had become. They were like a chorus of very insistent voices inside of her head reminding her she was a piece of shit and she could never do anything right.

Part of her knew those voices weren’t normal and she shouldn’t pay attention to what they said, but… well, it wasn’t like they were wrong. There must have been something really wrong with her if her family refused to see her and her friends had dropped her like a hot potato months ago. Sometimes she searched for their numbers in her phone, her thumb barely hovering over the call button, only for her to put it down again and having another drink. Why would she call them? There was nothing for her to tell them anyway.

The advantage of her mild hangovers was that it was really hard to hear her ugly thoughts over her headache. And usually just a couple of coffee mugs were more than enough to get her going again and starting all over again.

She had a nice little routine that didn’t depend on timetables or schedules. So of course it went completely awry when someone demanded she tried to follow one of those.

She woke up on Monday to find her alarm had gone off an hour ago and she had simply been too deep asleep to hear it. When she managed to open her eyes, she realized with a jolt it was almost seven, but if she got moving now, she could still make it in time.

But then again… why? To go to the shelter and having to deal with exhausting people all morning? She rubbed her eyes. How late would be too late? She could call in sick and tried again tomorrow… then again, that could add another day to her sentence or make Cesar show up in her apartment. With a sigh, Meg stood up. Her feet hit the empty bottle of whiskey next to her bed and sent it rolling away to the wall against the room, where it crash against another one. Their clinking sounding way too cheery for her overall mood.

She waddled towards the kitchen and turned on the coffee maker before realizing she had no coffee late. She was also out of mugs, all the ones she possessed sitting dirty and used in the kitchen sink. She stared at them tiredly and decided she would wash them later. She ignored the voice in her head saying she had been putting it off for a week now and God, she was so useless she couldn’t even keep her own apartment in order.

She brushed her hair and applied abundant dry shampoo on her roots. She would have to wash her hair eventually, but now she just didn’t have the time. When was the last time she had a shower? Friday? Saturday? It had been before the weekend, she was almost sure. It didn’t matter. Nothing some deodorant, perfume and three layers of clothing to face the cruel winter couldn’t fix.

By the time she was ready to leave the house, it was already seven thirty. It would take her half an hour on the subway and then another fifteen minutes of walking to get to St. Michael’s.

So, since she was already going to be super late, Meg figured it wouldn’t make it worse to stop by a coffee shop. The line was long, but at least everyone there seemed just as exhausted as she was, so no one tried to make small talk with her. The barrista shot her a suspicious glance when she asked for extra cream, but to leave enough space in the cup to add something extra, but handed her the drink exactly how she had asked.

Meg held the hot coffee between her legs in the crowded subway and took out her flask from inside her jacket. It wasn’t the soundest idea to take it with her to the shelter. By not doing that, she avoided the temptation of having a drink while on her shift and getting caught, but what was Castiel going to do to her anyway? He had already proven that he had no backbone, so…

She ended up arriving at St. Michael’s an hour and a quarter too late. She didn’t think anybody would notice it, but Ellen glared at her as she signed her entry.

“You’re a ray of sunshine, aren’t you, Ellen?” Meg told her, rolling her eyes.

She took another sip of her “Irish coffee” and strolled inside. She half expected to get yelled at when she crossed the kitchen doors, but Missouri simply squinted at her and pointed at the pile of dishes that needed to get washed. At least she didn’t make her wear the hair net again.

Meg had just rolled her sleeves up and began her work when Castiel walked in, flanked by Ellen and Benny. She saw them out of the corner of her eye, but she didn’t realize they were coming towards her until Castiel was standing right in front of her.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he asked, in a tone that was vaguely threatening. Meg hadn’t realized just how much taller than her he was and how broad his shoulders were until he was practically cornering her against the sink.

“Uh… the dishes?” she said, nonchalantly.

Castiel ignored her jab, passed an arm around her and grab the plastic cup that Meg had left on the counter. As soon as he did, Meg closed her eyes, kicking herself mentally. She should have thrown that thing away before he walked in. Castiel lifted the lid and sniffed. Meg hoped in vain that the smell of the coffee was enough to masquerade the whiskey she had added to it.

She had no such luck. Castiel’s nostrils flared and his eyes were bright with pure anger.

“What is this?” he asked.

“See? I told you!” Ellen said before Meg could come up with an excuse. “She smells like a distillery.”

Meg closed her arms on top of her chest, defensively.

“Well, you ain’t a field of roses either.”

“I told you on the first day, alcohol is against the rules,” Castiel said, sharply. “And you were late today on top of it.”

“Oh, come on. I drank it before I got here,” Meg argued. “Well, most of it…”

Castiel wasn’t buy that excuse at all. He emptied the cup on the sink (dammit, that still had like two good sips in it) and then threw it away in the garbage can.

“Did you bring any more alcohol with you?”

Suddenly, the flask inside of her pocket weighed a ton.

“No,” Meg lied, pressing her back against the sinker even closer.

The way Castiel’s eyes pierced through her made her shiver. There was something cold about his rage, something calculated and terrifying. He was holding it back, she realized, he was barely containing himself not to scream at her in front of everybody.

That was why his voice sounded rougher than usual when he finally spoke:

“I don’t think St. Michael’s will be a good fit for you. Finish your shift and don’t bother showing up tomorrow. I will talk to your probation officer so he finds somewhere else for you to serve your sentence.”

“What?”

Castiel turned his back on her and walked away. A wave of panic washed over Meg for a second. If Castiel told Cesar she had been drinking and if Cesar told the judge then…

“Wait! Clarence, wait!”

She tried to take a step towards, to go after him, to tell him he couldn’t do that to her, that he just didn’t understand… but Benny grabbed her by the arm and kept her in place before she could.

“Let go of me!” Meg protested.

“Come on, Meg. Don’t make a scene,” he told her.

She looked around to notice that every one of the volunteers in the kitchen was staring in her direction, disapprovingly. Meg was tempted to scream at them to mind their own damn business, but before she knew it, Benny was dragging her away to the dinner. There were a few stragglers still having their breakfast, but no one paid attention to them when Benny sat her down on an empty table and told her to calm down again.

“That was a very stupid thing you did, lil’ sista’, and Cas is furious. I reckon you need to let him cool off before you go talk to him.”

“What for?” Meg let out a long, dissonant laugh. “I’m fucked. I fucked up.”

“You made a mistake,” Benny agreed, sitting in front of her and intertwining his fingers on the table with calm. “But Castiel’s not unreasonable. When he’s calm, that is.”

He seemed excessively serene in comparison to how Castiel had reacted. Meg stared at him with a frown, trying to find out what was the catch in all of this.

“You think I can manipulate him into not telling on me?”

“No need to manipulate him. Just tell him you’re sorry and that you won’t do it again,” Benny suggested. “And then just… don’t.”

There was definitely a catch in all of this.

“Right. Because he’s totally going to believe that.”

“I think he’ll believe it,” Benny told her. “The thing is, will you able to not show up drunk for your shift?”

Meg groaned and looked away. She should’ve bought some mints along with her coffee. If Ellen wasn’t such a goddamn bloodhound…

“We’re not stupid, Meg,” Benny told her. “Half of us are recovering alcoholics too and we all thought at some point we could fool others into not realizing what we were doing.”

“I’m not trying to fool anyone,” Meg snapped at him. “Yeah, I’m a damn alcoholic, but I’m functional.”

Benny blinked at her, perplexed. Meg supposed he was ready for him to deny the A word, but what would be the point?

“I’m not an idiot,” Meg continued. “I know how to handle my liquor and stay safe.”

“Didn’t you crash a car into a lamppost?”

“That’s not what happened!”

“Then, _what_ happened?”

Meg clicked her tongue, annoyed that he had got her to talk about that. She looked away and stubbornly refused to answer that question.

“Well, whatever it was, clearly you’re not handling it as well as you think,” Benny concluded after a few seconds of uneasy silence. “Listen, just go home for the day and talk to Castiel tomorrow. And you know… if you need someone to lend an ear, you can have mine.”

“You?” Meg snickered at him. “What are you, some kind of shrink?”

“Yes,” Benny said. “Dr. Lafitte, at your service.”

He smiled at her stunned silence and stood up before she could recover. Why the hell was a therapist working at a shelter? Didn’t these guys all have fancy offices covered in books and paintings and wore tweed pants and thought of everybody’s brains as a scientific curiosity?

Then again, that might have been just the therapist that Meg’s mother had sent her to.

She couldn’t deny that his advice was pretty sound, though. She should go home, take a bath, maybe throw away the empty bottles and wash her damn mugs or something.

On the train back home, she emptied her flask in one single gulp. By the time she arrived, she was slightly buzzed and the stress of the day was catching up to her. So she didn’t think anyone could blame her for crashing in her couch and blacking off for the rest of the day.

 

* * *

 

The door of Castiel’s office was ajar and he sitting in his desk, with a cup of coffee steaming next to him. He was shuffling around papers with a frown in his burrow and he didn’t look any less angry than the day before. Meg stood next to it and knocked softly. He lifted his head at her and once again, he looked like his collected, calm self. A little tired perhaps, but who didn’t look tired at that hour in the morning?

“Can I come in?” she asked.

Castiel gathered all the pages scattered over his desk and put them away before beckoning towards the chair in front of him. Meg sat down, trying her best to look contrite. She was sober this time (well, mildly) and she had bathed and put on clean clothes before she came (she’d need to do laundry soon, though). Instead of going to sleep and trying to wake up in the morning, though, she had stayed up all night, drank three cups of coffee and left her apartment when the time came.

She decided she wasn’t going to mention this as she lifted her eyes at him.

“I…” she began, but Castiel didn’t let her continue.

“I want to apologize, Meg,” he said, surprising her. “I overreacted. I should have called you into my office to talk to you privately instead of scolding you in front of everybody. I was stressed out for reasons unrelated to you and I didn’t handle the situation well. I hope you can forgive me.”

Meg stared at him. She was expecting him to act like a strict school teacher and let her talk about what a fool _she_ had been. She was ready to beg and demean herself in an effort to get him to keep his mouth shut in front of Cesar. This apology took her so by surprise that she couldn’t help but to blurt out the truth:

“But I… I broke the rules.”

“Yes, you did, and I’m afraid we’ll have to do something about that,” Castiel said. “But I humiliated you in front of the others instead of remembering that you’re still healing and setbacks will happen. That was a mistake.”

Meg sat back down in the chair.

“You’re treating me with kid’s gloves,” she said. “There’s no need. I can take a little bit of humiliation. What I’m worried about is what you’re going to tell Cesar.”

Castiel’s lips curved up. It wasn’t quite a smile, more like he was amused by her words, but couldn’t bring himself to show it. Meg wondered what it would take to actually get him to laugh, a full on body laugh.

“I think… we can’t be expected to get it right the first time,” he said. “So… I’m not going to mention this one particular incident to him. As long as it doesn’t happen again.”

“Noted.”

“And you’re on time for your shifts from now on.”

Meg was almost tempted to joke that would be harder to achieve, but she didn’t want to push her luck. Besides, maybe she could kept it up the way she had done today: sleep in the afternoon and stay up all night instead of trying to force herself to become an early bird.

“I’ll do my best,” she said instead.

“That’s all I ask of you,” Castiel said, as if it was nothing. “And you’re on bathroom cleaning and laundry duty for the rest of the week.”

“Okay,” Meg groaned and got up. “Guess I deserved that…”

“With Donna.”

Meg froze on the way to the door.

“Really?”

“Yes, she’s under the impression you don’t like her very much, but I assured her that cannot be the case. She’s a delight to be around.”

Meg squinted her eyes at him. For all his talk about forgiveness and kindness and whatnot…

“You sneaky little bastard. You know exactly what you’re doing.”

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Castiel replied. His tone was flat and his face expressionless, but Meg thought she saw a little twinkle in his blue eyes. “Please, close the door on your way out.”

Meg huffed, but she did as she instructed. And as she walked upstairs to get the cleaning supplies, she had to admit Castiel wasn’t as spineless as she'd thought.


	3. February

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: this chapter contains depictions of sexual and physical assault.

“… and you know how people are on this time of the year. Love is in the air and all that, so everybody’s feeling the pressure to get a date, but I honestly think that it’s better to get to know someone casually and see how it develops from there, you know?”

Meg was scrubbing the floor and only half-paying attention to Donna’s chatter. They were at the end of the shift and she was just dying to go home, have a drink and crash for twelve hours straight.

She was making it work. Somehow. Waking up in the middle of the night, filling herself with caffeine and going to work was a good enough plan to be on the shelter on time… and it work for the next five hours, if she rationed her smoke breaks correctly. But during the last hour and a half or so, her entire body started screaming at her to get out of there and get some sleep. That was when her crankiness hit peak levels and it didn’t help that the last part of her shift was usually right after the lunch rush, which meant dish washing duty, which meant Missouri peeking over her shoulder and angrily informing her when she had failed to clean a spot.

It also didn’t help that after the Irish coffee incident she had become a pariah in the shelter. Apparently what she had done wasn’t just against “the rules”; it was a cardinal sin that she had committed against the integrity and well-being of every single person who either worked, volunteered and went to St. Michael’s for shelter. Now no one would talk to her unless it was absolutely necessary (meaning, to transmit Missouri’s orders). Ellen’s glares were fiercer than ever. The Bane twins walked out of the room whenever she walked in. Jo, Charlie, Garth and Ash kept close to each other, muttering so she couldn’t hear their conversations and growing quiet if she came anywhere near close to them.

Except for Donna, of course. She was relentless.

“… and what about you, Meg?”

Meg blinked a couple of times and tried to remember what inane topic had Donna been droning on and on about before she addressed her directly. She failed.

“Uh… what?”

“Do you have a plans for this week?” Donna asked her, winking. “Some hot date with a lucky guy?”

“Right. Valentine’s Day,” Meg remember. She sighed and scrubbed the pot with more energy. Why did Missouri’s meals always stick to the bottom of it, dammit? “No, no guys.”

“Girls? I heard Charlie is available,” Donna said, brushing her shoulder against Meg’s.

“Well, Charlie hates me, so no. And besides, I do have plans. I have someone to impress.”

“Really? Do share!”

“My probation officer.”

Donna either didn’t get joke or didn’t find it funny. For once, she stopped smiling and slowly dried her hands before turning to her.

“Meg, have you ever read _The Knight in Rusty Armor_?”

“Oh, darn, it’s been on my to-read list for years. Never got around to, though.”

“Well, I can lend you my copy, if you’d like,” Donna offered, again flat out ignoring the sarcasm in Meg’s voice. “It really helped me during the beginning of my recovery. It made me understand there’s something to be gained from letting your walls down and allowing people to see how you really are.”

“Well, I don’t think that’ll work in my case,” Meg replied. “People already see me as I am: a rude, snarky, all around unlikable person.”

“Honey, I don’t really think that’s true,” Donna replied, in that kind, slightly condescending tone of voice that had to be the single most annoying thing about her entire shtick. “I think you want people to believe that because it keeps them away.”

“Well, yeah. And that’s exactly what I want them to do,” Meg replied, sharply.

Donna stopped her scrubbing and threw her a look that could only be described as pitiful.

“What?” Meg snapped at her.

“Nothing,” Donna said. She picked up her brush and threw it inside her bucket. “I’m just thinking that it must be really lonely not having friends at all.”

It was a good thing she walked away because that last comment utterly infuriated Meg. What did Donna know if she had friends or not? What did she care? If Donna had given her the chance, Meg would have informed her that no, she didn’t feel alone at all, because she didn’t need anybody’s company. She was fine all by herself. She could deal with everything that came her way and anybody who doubted it was welcome to shove their opinion up their ass.

Two hours later, while she was laying in her couch wide awake despite her exhaustion, Meg cursed Donna for putting the idea in her head. It wasn’t that she expected anybody to call or check on her, but… shouldn’t they have? After everything Meg had done?

She picked up her cellphone from the floor, disconnecting it from the charger in the process, and stared at the screen for a long time. She didn’t want to sound pathetic, but goddammit, she had been quiet for too long.

In the end, she sent a single text to a single person and waited. The answer never came, so Meg sighed, let the cellphone slip from her hand and rolled over herself to sleep.

It wasn’t like she was expecting them to answer anyway.

 

* * *

 

She woke up what felt like way too soon to someone banging on her door. Groaning, she covered her eyes and refused to get up, but the banging continued. It was probably Mrs. Carrigan from downstairs. That old bitch was always complaining that Meg had the music too loud or that she smoked too much or that she wasn’t supposed to do her laundry late at night, as if it made any difference to her. Meg had done literally nothing all afternoon except sleep, so fuck her.

She was just drifting back to sleep when her cellphone chimed somewhere in the floor. This time, Meg had to open her eyes and pay attention. No one ever called her except for her mother and if Lilith was calling her that must have meant some bullshit she couldn’t avoid dealing with.

She rolled down to lie on the carpet and patted around until she found it. She placed it against her ear without even looking at the screen.

“What?” she mumbled.

“Hey, open up, you whore! Your hallway’s cold!”

That voice was enough to spring Meg back into consciousness.

“What?” she repeated. She rubbed her eyes for a moment and blinked until the room came into focus. “Ruby?”

“Yeah, who else? I’m outside! Open the fuck up!”

“Yeah, okay,” Meg muttered. “Give me a sec.”

Her sluggish brain didn’t have time to figure out what exactly was Ruby doing there and it didn’t really matter. All she had t do was half walk, half dragged herself to the door and move the handle.

Ruby strutted into her apartment the moment she gave her an opening.

“Finally! I was freezing!”

Meg thought about pointing out that might be because Ruby was wearing ripped jeans and a flimsy leather jacket in the middle of February… but then she figured there were more important things to point out. She closed the door and turned to look at her friend, who was already in the kitchen and ransacking her fridge.

“What are you doing here?”

“You texted me, silly,” Ruby reminded her with a chuckle. She threw her long black hair back and took a sip of Meg’s beer.

“Yeah, but how did you get _here_?” Meg said, gesturing to her entire apartment.

“You gave Tom the address,” Ruby reminded her. “So he gave it to me and here I am!”

She raised the can of beer as if to toast to an invisible crowd. Meg was not amused and now that he was slowly waking up, she remembered she was supposed to be mad at her. She crossed her arms over her chest and stared at Ruby until she had no choice but to put the beer down and pay attention to her.

“Okay, listen. I know I haven’t been the best of friends…”

“You dropped me like a hot potato back in December!” Meg reminded her. “I called you over and over and you didn’t even bother to pick up the phone…”

“I was in trouble too, okay?” Ruby said. “I’m not supposed to call attention to myself. That whole incident with the car? It didn’t look good.”

Meg rolled her eyes, but she had to admit Ruby had a point. Due to the nature of her “work”, it was expected for Ruby to drop off the face of the earth now and then. She was a dealer after all. Not an important one with fur coats and exotic pets and stuff, but she knew where and how to get all sort of shit. And if she got in any sort of legal trouble, the people who provided her with that would be really pissed at her.

Besides, she looked really apologetic as she walked towards Meg and put her hands around her waist.

“Come on, babe, can you really be mad at me? I’m here now.”

“I don’t know,” Meg said, but her tone was much softer now. “You’re gonna do something to make it up to me?”

“You know I will.” Ruby left a quick peck on her lips and stepped back grinning. “Come on, you gotta get ready.”

“Ready for what?” Meg asked, but Ruby was already walking inside her bedroom. “Ruby!”

“After I got your text, I called Lucifer and Abaddon,” Ruby explained. She opened Meg’s closet and began rummaging through it. “They’re meeting us at that club I told you about. Remember the one? With the space theme shit? Do you have anything nice to wear?”

Meg leaned against the door, watching her and despite it all, she couldn’t help but to smile. Maybe it was a little bit her fault that Ruby had kept away for so long. If she had texted her sooner, perhaps Ruby would have come then.

“I don’t know, Rubes,” she told her, honestly. “Don’t you want to order a pizza and stay in or something? I have to work tomorrow.”

“Work?” Ruby repeated, with a laugh. “On a Saturday?”

“Yeah, it’s that… community service thing the judge made me do…”

“Skip it,” Ruby said. She snatched a top from the bottom of a pile, not caring when the entire thing came crashing down as she held the shirt up smiling approvingly. “This is cute. Wear it.”

She threw it at Meg, who caught in the air with a sigh.

“Rubes, I can’t skip it. Didn’t you hear me? It’s court mandated.”

“And didn’t you hear _me_? Lucifer is going to be there!” Ruby approached her with a beam. “He said he _really_ wanted to see you.”

“He… really?”

Ruby wiggled her eyebrows and Meg punched her lightly in the shoulder.

Lucifer wasn’t Lucifer’s real name, of course, but Meg didn’t know it and it didn’t really matter. He was a hot guy she had been trying to fuck for the last year, but either he was always hanging with another girl or the opportunity never arose. It wasn’t like Meg had a crush on him or anything stupid like that. She just thought he was extremely handsome and it frustrated her to no end that she hadn’t been able to sleep with him yet. She had hoped that after the whole bullshit about her “trial” blew over they’d be able to get in touch again, but apparently they had both been… busy.

Ruby was well aware of all of this of course.

“Maybe tonight’s the night you get _lucky_!” she sang.

“Stop,” Meg said, laughing at how stupid she acted sometimes. She held the top in her hands for a second, considering. She hadn’t put it on in a while, but she didn’t think her body had changed that much that it wouldn’t fit her. “Okay, fine. I hadn’t gone out in a while and I’m climbing the walls here.”

“Awesome!” Ruby patted her in the cheek. “Let’s get you all dolled up, then!”

There was something to be said for actually getting dressed to impress someone. It was different than getting ready for the shelter, because Meg wasn’t trying to communicate any messages with her appearance then, unless the message was “Leave me alone, I am pissed”. No, in this case, she really had to pay attention to what she was doing.

The top Ruby had chosen for her was sexy enough. It hugged her slender figure, left her shoulders uncovered and the laces on the front helped to give volume to her small breasts. When she was a teenager, the fact she couldn’t fill a cup B had tormented her, but with time she had learned that while having a body like a model or an actress helped, guys could be attracted to other things. Like boldness and confidence.

Besides, she had a cute ass and pretty legs, as Ruby reminded her while she helped her choose between a pair of tight jeans and a miniskirt.

“That’s the winning combo,” she said, nodding approvingly as Meg strutted in the miniskirt and the high knee boots she usually wore with it.

“Really? Isn’t it a bit too much?” Meg asked, eyeing herself in the mirror. She didn’t look like herself, but then again, as she had told Donna, maybe that wasn’t a bad thing.

“No, you’re perfect,” Ruby insisted. She walked up to her and put her hands around her waist from behind, pressing Meg against her chest. “You’re always perfect, babe.”

She lowered her face and left a soft kiss right over the join between her neck and her shoulder. Meg squirmed in her arms, uncomfortable.

“Ruby…” she muttered.

“Right. Sorry,” Ruby let go of her and laughed, perhaps a little too loud. “Let me do your make up and then we’ll be ready to go.”

Meg watched her left the room feeling immensely sad for a moment. Ruby was a lot of fun and it had been a no brainer to fall in bed with her no long after they met at a party in Meg’s dorm, when she was still pretending to care about getting an education. But she was also voluble and never stayed for too long and it wasn’t like Meg needed a girlfriend or a boyfriend, but she preferred her friends with benefits to be people who didn’t disappear for months at a time. Not to mention that yeah, maybe she drank like happy hour was every hour, but Ruby had some nastier habits with the shit she dealt.

She knew Ruby had been disappointed when Meg decided to cut back on the “benefits” part of their relationship. But for the most part, she still acted like they always did: flirting shamelessly, taking her out for fun outings, and offering her blunts now and then. Hell, she was even helping Meg get with someone else that night.

So Meg decided not to make much of it. If Ruby wanted the current state of their relationship to change, Meg wouldn’t say no, but Ruby needed to clean up her act a little bit and stick around for real this time.

“There!” Ruby said after she applied the last touches of lipstick. “You look so good I could eat you for dinner.”

“Good enough for Lucifer?” Meg replied.

“He’d be crazy to turn you down,” Ruby replied with a laugh.

So maybe the melancholy Meg thought she saw before had been all in her head. In any case, it didn’t matter. They hailed a cab on the street and half an hour later, they were at the club. It was easy to spot them: Abaddon’s fiery read head and Lucifer’s studded leather jacket were hard to miss. They were already near the entry and they both turned to them when Ruby called their names.

“There you are, pretty girl,” Abaddon greeted her. Ruby approached her with a grin and Abaddon put an arm around her neck and pulled her in for a deep kiss. Some guys behind them hooted and Ruby showed them a middle finger without letting go of Abaddon.

So maybe Meg had definitely imagined Ruby’s melancholy earlier.

“How you’ve been?”

Lucifer’s soft voice pulled her attention back to him. He was so handsome with his sandy blonde hair and clear grey eyes. He stood and moved with an air of arrogance, as if he owned everything around him and expected people to bow down to him. But when there was something soft about his smile, about the way his hand briefly touched her shoulder that made her think there was a different side of him he rarely let anyone see.

Meg wanted to hit that.

“Hanging in there,” she replied, smirking as if her stomach wasn’t doing backflips.

"Good thing you didn't get hurt in that accident," Lucifer said. He brushed a lock of her hair away from her face, his hand lingering softly on her cheek. "Would have been a real shame if something happened to your face."

"You fond of my face, bad boy?" Meg asked, the words rolling from her tongue smoothly.

Lucifer chuckled softly but didn't say anything else as they had reached the end of the line. The bouncer greeted Lucifer with a fist bump and moved the cordon so they could go in. Meg strutted inside a few steps before him and felt a warm satisfaction when Lucifer's hand came to ghost over her hip.

Or maybe it was because the club was unbearably hot compared to the night outside. It was still relatively early so it was still possible to make their way from the door to the bar with relative ease.

"What's your poison, gorgeous?" Lucifer asked, screaming to make himself heard over the booming music.

"I'll have whatever you're having."

"My kind of girl," he laughed as he beckoned the bartender. "Four shots of Jack!"

They toasted with Abaddon and Ruby. Meg emptied her glass in one gulp and managed not to grimace as the alcohol burned down her throat. She was well aware of Lucifer's eyes following every one of her movements.

"I want to dance!" Ruby declared and grabbed Abaddon's hand. "Let's go!"

They disappeared among the crowd in the blink of an eye. Meg didn't expect to see them again for the rest of the night.

"You wanna dance too?" Lucifer asked. He had already ordered two more shots and Meg downed her second one with more ease.

"Sure."

Instead of dragging him away to the dance floor, though, she left her clutch purse over one of the stools and started swaying her hips there. She moved closer to him with every step she took, following the rhythm of the song, letting her body loosen up with the music and the alcohol. Lucifer leaned back against the counter, drank another shot and simply watched her with dark eyes and a half-smirk.

At some point, Meg moved closer, her body now grinding lightly against his and got slightly frustrated when he made no attempt to put his hands on her. Short of yelling at him she wanted him to fuck her, she didn't know what else she could do...

Lucifer's grip on her wrist surprised her. He turned her around as if she was nothing but a rag doll and slammed her against his body, lassoing his other arm around her. Meg barely had time to hold on to his shoulders before he tipped her down and pressed his mouth against her.

It was as if he engulfed her. His kiss was sloppy but passionate, his tongue sliding over hers as soon as Meg opened her lips to try to get some air. She tasted the whiskey in his breath and a shiver of pleasure went down her spine. His hand slid down to cup one of her ass cheeks as he helped her stand straight again, only to put a hand on her neck and kissing her again.

He was electrifying and dominant and everything Meg had fantasized he would be.

"Hey, you two!" the bartender shouted at them. "Take that shit somewhere else!"

Meg threw her head back and laughed out of pure ecstasy. She lowered her mouth to Lucifer's ear, ready to ask him if he wanted to get the hell out of there and go back to her place, even thought they had been at the club less than an hour.

But he turned around, almost pushing her away in the process. Meg stumbled on her high heels and she would have fallen down if Lucifer hadn't been holding on to her wrist still.

"Come on," he ordered her.

Meg barely had time to grab her purse before he half pulled, half guided her away. It took her a few seconds to figure out they weren't heading for the door, but for the men's bathroom.

Well, it wasn't like Meg hadn't done that before and honestly, it was a compliment. He wanted her so bad he couldn't wait. She could still ask him to come home with her afterwards.

Lucifer slammed the door close behind him and didn't bother to check if any of the stalls were occupied before he pushed her against the wall and kissed her once more. His let go of his grip around her wrist and slid his hand underneath her shirt, slowly caressing her nipples above her bra. Meg moaned against his mouth, holding on with her arms around her neck for dear life. He was so overwhelming that when he move a hand up her thigh to explore underneath her skirt, Meg barely even remember what she was supposed to tell him.

“Wait,” she muttered. He continued touching her, his fingers sliding over her suddenly uncomfortably wet panties. “Wait!” she repeated, putting a hand on his chest and slowly pushing him away.

“What?” he snarled.

Meg opened her clutch purse, almost forgotten in her hand and rummaged through it until she found a condom. Lucifer laughed when she handed it to him.

“You’re a dirty whore, huh? You knew this would happen.”

She didn’t know why those words turned the pleasant buzz in her head into a less than pleasant shiver, but she ignored it quickly. She could stand a little bit of dirty talk. It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary.

“Always be prepared,” she replied, with a smirk.

Lucifer leaned down and kissed her neck, his teeth sinking into the tender flesh until Meg screamed, the momentary doubt erased from her mind. He was so damn hot, dammit, she wanted him so much and Lucifer was ready to give that to her.

“Turn around,” he snarled in her ear.

Meg obeyed him without a second of hesitation. She made a point to lower down her panties and bent over against the sink, sticking her ass out to tempt him, mentally thanking Ruby for convincing her to wear the skirt. She heard the foil crackling and the tingling of his belt as he unbuckled it. His hands were on her again fast, grabbing her hips, lifting up her skirt and pinching her ass cheek until she squealed. Meg watched his eyes in the stained mirror in front of her, how they were darkened with desire and let the excitement of what they were about to do wash over her and erase all other doubt in her mind.

Lucifer took her carelessly, barely giving her time to spread her legs wider as he thrust into her with abandon, his fingers squeezing her until she was sure they would leave a bruise. Meg cried out and held unto the edges of the sink, the sweet pressure of her orgasm building up in her lower stomach already. Now and then she looked up, watching Lucifer’s reddened face in the reflection, the groans falling from his lips. It pleased her. It pleased her to see that almost animal need in his eyes, it pleased her how there was no need of words between them to both now they wanted this…

The bathroom’s door opened.

“Occupied!” Lucifer shouted.

Meg only caught the glimpse of the back of the head of the guy as he quickly retreated outside. She threw her head back and laughed shamelessly, echoing Lucifer’s own cackle. He picked a faster rhythm, perhaps fearing that someone else would come and interrupt them. Meg leaned even further, to get him to go even deeper into her, rocking her body back and forwards to match his movements…

The pleasure wave caught her by surprise, almost making her lose her grip and weakening her knees. Lucifer bit into her neck as he held her against his body, fucking her until he too shuddered and moaned loud against her skin. Meg closed her eyes, breathing in deeply, the pounding of her heart drowning out the muffle music coming from outside, the mess between her legs hot and uncomfortable and sticky…

That wasn’t right.

The heat of her afterglow froze as a deep sensation of pure panic overtook her.

“What did you do?” she asked, opening her eyes and writhing in Lucifer’s embrace to turn around. “What the fuck did you do?!”

He let go of her and zipped his pants, a smug smile across his face.

“Come on. It felt good, didn’t it?”

Meg’s pulse quickened, but there wasn’t anything pleasant about it this time. She looked around to find her clutch purse, laying on the floor along with her panties and the condom she had given to him.

The wrapping was still intact.

Her horror paralyzed her to the point he couldn’t react when Lucifer’s arms snaked around her and pulled her against him.

“Wanna go somewhere else?” he asked, before gently nibbling at her ear.

Meg finally managed to react, putting her hands on her shoulders and trying to push him away from her. The strength that she had found so sexy just a little while ago was suddenly terrifying.

“Let go of me!” she demanded. “Let go!”

Lucifer simply laughed, a sound that made all the alarms in her brain go off at the same time.

“You look cute when you’re mad.”

Meg slapped him. She didn’t mean to do it, she just wanted him to stop touching her, she needed to put some space between the two. The sound echoed through the bathroom and Lucifer stumbled backwards, more surprised than hurt. Meg used that little bit of space to flee as fast as her heels allowed her to, only stopping to pick her purse and her underwear…

She should have just left.

Lucifer’s hand grabbed her by the shoulder, forcing him to turn around and face him.

“Hey, what the fuck?”

“Don’t fucking touch me, asshole!”

He didn’t listen to her. His grip was mean and constricting over her shoulders as he tried to get her to turn around and face him. Meg struggled and shouted at him, calling him an asshole again, but it was useless. Lucifer laughed once more and crashed his mouth against her, his tongue sliding so deep Meg heaved. Instinctively, she bit down hard until she felt blood flowing into her mouth.

Only then he did let go.

The rage in his face made her step back.

“Fucking bitch!” he shouted, shoving her hard enough to make her hit the wall. The pain shocked her and sent her tumbling to the ground. She put her hands forwards to break the fall, but they slip on the floor and she ended up with her jaw against the tiles.

“Hey, what the fuck’s going on here?!”

Meg managed to scramble up by holding to the side of the sink. She glanced behind her: Lucifer was leaving the bathroom while an unknown guy walked towards her. He grabbed her by the elbow and helped her to her feet.

“You okay?”

“I’m fine.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes, I’m fine!”

The guy immediately put his hands in the air and stepping back.

“Okay, I was just trying to help!”

Meg quickly picked up her stuff from the floor and left.

She probably should have waited a moment longer. As soon as she stepped out, the music exploded inside of her skull, making her dizzy once more. Her feet were clumsy and she had to stop to hold on to the wall for a moment before she took another step. There was so many people there, passing her by, their voices and laughter far too loud and confusing. Meg closed her eyes, trying to calm her raging thoughts.

Ruby. She needed to find Ruby. She would tell her what had happened and they could leave that place. She was shaking and still furious, humiliated. How didn’t she realize what was going on? She should have checked he actually put on the thing. Oh, fucking hell, she could still feel his cum inside her thighs. Her stomach tensed and a wave of revulsion climbed up her throat.

Forcing herself to not scream, she started moving towards the dance floor. She looked for Abaddon’s bright red hair, but there was just too many people in her way, swaying and twirling to the music, and with the light flashing in her face she just couldn’t see to focus her eyes…

She caught a glimpse of a studded leather jacket and panic overtook her once again.

It wasn’t easy to make her way towards the exit, but she stomped on enough feet and elbowed enough ribcages until she reached it. Some people shouted insults at her that she didn’t quite catch. She didn’t care. She needed to get out of there.

The cold winter air outside was like a dagger in her lungs, but Meg breathed in gulps of it until her heart started beating normally again. Her head still insisted on making her believe everything around her was spinning, but she managed to walk away a few steps before the nausea overtook her.

Her vomit tasted bitter on her mouth and it smelled even worse once it hit the pavement. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw some people walking by her and throwing disgusting glances at her, but she didn’t care. As soon as she was able to stop, she stood up, wiped her mouth with the back of her hand and walked away quickly.

Well, that night had been a fiasco. She was covered in sweat, but the night was so cold she found herself trembling soon enough. She should have brought a jacket, goddammit. Her feet were killing her, swollen and aching inside of her boots, barely helping her keep balance over them. Lucifer turned out to be an ass, Ruby abandoned her…

And on top of it all, she had no idea where she was.

She stopped on a corner to look around, but neither the buildings nor the names of the street sounded familiar. Ruby had given the driver the instructions and Meg had just gone along with it, assuming she wouldn’t have to go home alone that night. She didn’t know if she had enough to pay for the drive back, but she took out her cellphone to try to call for an Uber or something to pick her up.

It was dead. She’d forgotten to charge it, barely even remembering to pick it up on her way out. Meg stared at herself in the black screen. She looked like a mess, her cheeks pale and her make-up smeared. That added to the shortness of her skirt and the tightness of her top made her look like a cheap whore.

That was what Lucifer had called her. And he hadn’t been wrong, had he? She’d let him fuck her over the sink and slap her around. She was so eager for his dick she hadn’t even checked if he had put the damn condom on. That was on her. She should have been more careful and now she had caught whatever Lucifer had and she had his cum floating inside of her. Oh, shit, what if she got pregnant? What was she going to do?

She forced herself to breathe out. There was nothing she could do about any of that right now. First and foremost, she needed to go home. She didn’t have enough money for a cab, but she could wait for the Metro it would only be, what? A couple of hours?

If she could find any station nearby that was. The streets were lightened by the neon signs of various bars and clubs and she supposed she could get on any of them for warmth, but she honestly wasn’t in the mood to dance or drink or deal with people getting too close to her in her personal space. She just needed to go home and maybe sleep in a couple of hours until.

Oh, holy fuck, she had to work tomorrow. Meg cringed to herself and kept walking, ignoring the fact that her feet were killing her and that her blouse felt painfully flimsy against the freezing wind that had suddenly started blowing. The only way her situation could get any worse was if it started snowing.

Well, that and if some random person started following her.

Meg looked over shoulders a couple of times, startled, but many times the shadows in the alleys were just her uneasy mind playing a trick on her. No one was following, she told herself. Though she looked like an easy target for potential robbers and rapists. She was alone, she had no means to call for her, her awful boots (Meg was beginning to think she was going to wear flats from now on and until the day she died) wouldn’t help her run away…

A loud bang echoed through the street and Meg jumped, almost falling on the ground again. She leaned her back against the wall and stayed there trembling like a mouse. There were voices now, loud voices and laughter coming from somewhere to her left, singing “Happy Birthday” out of tune. A group of men had just excited one of the joints (a strip club, if the neon woman in a seductive position was anything to go by) and walking the street, making a lot of noise but not even in Meg’s direction. The smell of booze and smoke invaded the crisp air when they passed her by. Another banged followed and they all burst into laughter. It had been a party popper. Just that.

Meg’s brain started working fast. These guys just came out of a strip club, they were clearly drunk and in a celebratory mood. But there was also no one else on the street, no one she could ask for directions or help of any kind.

Maybe these guys would be kind enough to at least give her money for a taxi cab. Or maybe they would take her for a prostitute and do something much worse. But they were already disappearing around the corner and Meg was out of options. She turned and started walking towards them…

A dark figure jumped out from of the alleys, seemingly materializing out of thin air, cutting her off and Meg screamed, startled.

“Miss, there you are!” the figure said. “I’ve been following you for ages! Geez, you walk fast!”

“What do you want?” Meg asked, clutching her purse closer to her. If he made any attempt to take it, she would just toss it and run into one of the bars…

The figured approached her very slowly, with his hands in the air, as if Meg was a scared animal that would run away if he made any sudden movements. The bright blue light revealed the face of a black man, maybe in his fifties of sixties, with an unkempt black beard and crinkles around his eyes.

“I saw you pass by my alley and I thought you looked cold. Here,” he said, extending a hand towards her. “You can have this. I have another one.”

Meg warily took a closer look to what he was offering her. It looked like a bundle of clothes, a camo hoodie and a pair of fingerless gloves. Meg examined them closely and then looked up at the man. Of all the things she wasn’t expecting to happen that night, this had to be the most confusing one.

“Put it on,” he insisted, rubbing at his arms through his own black coat. “You’ll catch a cold.”

At some point, Meg needed to accept that destiny was just fucking over with her. With trembling fingers, passed the hoodie over her head. It was coarse and rough against her skin, but it was infinitely warmer than her sexy top.

She stared at the man, at lost for what to say.

“Uh… thank you?” Yes, that seem appropriate.

“You’re welcome,” he said, nodding. “If I may, what are you doing out here so late? This ain’t a place for a lady to be alone.”

He didn’t seem dangerous. At least, not for now and well… Meg was desperate enough that she had considered running after a group of strange drunk men.

“I got lost,” she confessed.

“I figured as much,” the man said.

“Do you know where the subway station is?”

The man tilted his head, as if he was thinking.

“There’s one, but it’s not a close by,” he informed her finally. “And in any case, the trains don’t start running until six. That’s hours away.”

“Well, it doesn’t seem like I have anywhere else to wait,” Meg replied.

The man nodded, conceding her point.

“Is it okay if I walk with you? To make sure nothing happens to you.”

Meg was tempted to tell him that her night had already gone to hell and she couldn’t imagine it getting any worse. But that might have been jinxing it.

The man walked silent and confidently by her side. He didn’t try to come anywhere near close to her and only spoke when he needed to give her some sort of direction, telling her “Now we turn around here” and “Two more blocks and then to the left”. They left the bars’ district behind to wander through barely lit streets and Meg started wondering if he wasn’t taking her somewhere else to kidnap her or something worse. But she still had no idea where she was and the temperature was dropping drastically. She shivered inside of his hoodie.

“Is it too far away?” she asked him.

“Not long now, miss. It’s just around the corner.”

He meant that literally. After they had turned one last time, the barely lit sign over the stairs, like a black mouth on the pavement, welcome them just a half block away.

Meg sighed and closed her eyes for a moment. She didn’t realize just how tense and scared she had really been up until that moment, with all the worst case scenarios running rampant in her imagination. But now she was there. She still wasn’t out of the woods, but at the very least she had cleared path now.

“Thank you,” she told the man.

“No problem, miss. Stay safe,” he said.

And as if that concluded his mission there, he turned around to leave.

“Hey, wait!” Meg called him. “Do you need money? I don’t have much, but I can…”

The look in his face when he turned towards her again shut her up instantly.

“I didn’t do it for the money,” he groaned, as if Meg had insulted him by the mere insinuation.

“Can I at least know your name?” she insisted as he turned his back on her once more.

“Rufus!” he shouted as he briskly strode away. “Rufus Turner, at your service!”

And he disappeared into the night, just as suddenly as he had appeared. Meg was left with nothing to do by climb down the stairs, hoping not to slip and fall on the way down.

The station was eerily silent and lonely, the bright white lights a sharp contrast to the darkness night outside. The underground breeze meant it wasn’t much warmer in there, but at least she had a roof over her head in case it started snowing or raining. She got her ticket from the machine and sat down on the bench in front of the rails, watching intensely at the lines in the map in the wall in front and at the red numbers of the clock above.

It was nearly three in the morning.

She must have fallen asleep, because when she opened her eyes, her neck was crooked in a weird position and her back ached. The train rumbled loudly over the rails as it slowed down in front of her and she rushed towards the open doors.

This was a nice time to be on the subway. The wagon was practically empty, so had the chance to sit down wherever she chose and put her head against the window, letting the rattle amplify her headache so she didn’t have to think about that night and all the bullshit that had gone down through it. She just needed and aspirin and several hours of sleep and everything would be just fine.

The train stopped and Meg ignored the looks of the handful of people that had been getting steadily on the train as she walked out and climbed the stairs towards the street. She blinked at the cold morning light and for a moment, she didn’t recognize the street she was in.

Then it hit her and she almost laughed: for some dumb reason, her half-asleep brain had indicated her to get off at the stop near St. Michael’s. It would be the first time she was actually arriving on time. Well, fuck that, she wasn’t going to work today. She was going to call Castiel and tell him she was sick or something and she would make it up to him by taking a double shift at some point during the week.

She turned around to go back down into the subway.

“Meg?”

Oh, well, that was just great.

Castiel looked strange in his black trench coat. He was squinting at her from behind the column of steam raising from his plastic coffee cup, as if he couldn’t make out the reason she was standing there, in those clothes. Meg figured it was a valid question.

“Uh… hi,” she said. She tried to come up with an excuse, but in the blink of an eye, Castiel had approached her and was looking at her intently.

“What happened to you? Are you alright?”

Meg didn’t know how to answer to that. No, she was cold and tired and had her panties in her purse. She had just had what had to be the one of the longest and most miserable nights in several months and for all she knew, she could be pregnant right then.

But she figured this wasn’t what Castiel cared about. She shifted her weight from one foot to another.

“I’m not drunk,” she told him. “I know I might look like it, but I swear…”

Castiel tilted his head and slowly raised his hand. Meg tried not to flinch as his fingers grazed her jaw.

“You have a bruise here,” he pointed out. “Come on. There’s ice in the shelter.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Meg muttered. “I, uh…”

Castiel didn’t move away or stopped staring at her. Meg wished he had. It was getting harder to just stand there and not think about Lucifer, about the roughness of his hand and the fury on his eyes…

Meg shivered and Castiel stood even closer to her.

“Are you okay?” he asked again. “Did someone hurt you?”

“No,” Meg said immediately, shaking her head. She barely even realize her voice was shaking when she started talking again: “No. No, he didn’t do anything I didn’t want to. He was… he was just a jerk…”

She felt pathetic, breaking down like that after she had managed to keep it together for so many hours and just not think. But suddenly it was as if everything came flooding back to her, the fear, the anger, the harrowing feeling of being alone and lost somewhere with no one to help her…

Castiel didn’t ask her to give him any details, thank God. He just put his arms around her and pulled her close to him, gently rocking her until she stopped crying.


	4. March-April

The first genuine day of spring came in much later than Meg would have liked it. They had random snowflakes falling late into March and despite the fact that there was a weak sun shining down on the city, there was still a cold breeze blowing every morning that made it difficult to get out of bed.

Luckily for her, she didn’t always have to.

“This isn’t working for me,” Meg told Castiel one day. “I’m just not a morning person. Any chance you can put me on the afternoon shift?”

“Yes, of course,” Castiel answered. “It’s not a problem.”

There was a look of pity in his bright blue eyes that made Meg want to scream at him to quit it. She was fine. She had one bad night. It wasn’t like she was a fucking rape victim or something.

But for the couple of weeks that followed that morning when Castiel found her disoriented and at the edge of a breakdown on the street, he treated her like she was porcelain. He stopped doing whatever it was that he did in his damn office and came out to be her partner in the tasks they had to do around the shelter. Meg appreciated it. She saw Donna less often now that she wasn’t coming in the mornings and well, as far as quiet vs. talkative task partners went, Castiel was somewhere in the middle.

It was a nice change of pace.

“How are you doing?”

“I’m perfectly fine, thank you,” Meg told him every time he asked, regardless of how she was that day. “I just found out yesterday that I’m not pregnant and my blood work for STD’s should be ready next week.”

“That’s… great news, Meg. But I meant, you?” he insisted. “Emotionally?”

Meg leaned on her mop and stared at him for a few seconds.

“Do you expect me to open up about my feelings while I’m moping the floor? Will my tears make it extra clean?”

Castiel sighed. “I don’t expect you to do anything, Meg. I just want to know how you’re doing.”

“I told you, it didn’t happen the way you’re picturing it happened,” she huffed.

“I’m not picturing anything, Meg.” Castiel submerged his mop in the bucket and continued cleaning. “I only know that you were pretty shaken that day. And if you need someone to talk to…”

“Yeah, yeah, you’ll be there for me.” Meg rolled her eyes.

“I was actually going to suggest you went to Benny,” Castiel corrected her. “But of course I would also… be willing to lend you an ear, if you so desire it.”

“Really?” Meg asked, slightly amused by how uncomfortable he seemed by extending that offer. “You’d be willing to lend me an ear? Is that how you’re going to phrase that?”

“Uh… yes.” Castiel squinted at her, as if she was the one who was weird for pointing out _his_ weird speech patterns. “Is there anything wrong with that?”

“You do you, I guess,” Meg replied, with a shrug. She continued moping the floor when she noticed she had never answered Castiel’s question about her well-being and she had learned by now that he wasn’t one to just let a topic go. “But no, really, I’m fine. It’s just… hard to find a good guy, I guess.”

“Yes, we are a dying breed,” he agreed.

“Wow, really fucking humble of you.”

“Well.” Castiel sank the mop in the bucket again and smiled at her. “You know what they say. A virtue that needs to be demonstrated isn’t really a virtue.”

“Is that from the Bible or some shit?”

“ _The Knight in Rusty Armor_ ,” Castiel explained.

“Oh, that one,” Meg groaned. “Donna’s been recommending it. Over and over again.”

“You may not believe it, but she may have a point. It’s a very enlightening read.”

“Yeah? Last time someone found a stupid sci-fi book enlightening, they formed a cult,” Meg pointed out. She stopped for a second. “But they did get a lot of famous people to give them money, so maybe it’s not such a bad business model.”

Then came a sound she didn’t think she would ever get to hear: Castiel’s laughter. Well, it was more like a soft chuckle, but still. He was usually such a serious person, always frowning or seemingly worried about something she was beginning to think he was incapable of laughter, but there she was. With how deep his voice was, it sounded a little like a rumble or a purr.

She caught herself thinking it was a very pleasant sound.

She lifted his head to find that she had taken her mop closer to Castiel’s and now they were both unwittingly standing mere inches from each other.

He was so handsome. She had noticed it before, because how could she not? But it was… it was different, seeing him up close now, after he had seen him both almost bursting with anger and gently trying to convince her to come to the shelter with him. He had been such a gentleman. He had let her use the showers and given him his own change of clothes that he kept in his office so she could go home in something other than her uncomfortable boots.

He hadn't pressed her to reveal any details of what went on and even now, after Meg had assured him she was fine over and over, he kept checking in on her every single day.

It was... it was strangely intense. Overwhelming. Like there was nothing Meg could do or say for Castiel to stop asking about it, to stop caring about her. Like there was nothing anything or anyone could do to stop him for whatever his end goal was. Was that the reason Meg kept staring at him, at lost for what to say to this man who was almost as unstoppable as a natural phenomenon? Was that why she was noticing once more that even though he was always frowning, he was so unfairly attractive?

And then he smiled and his features softened and Meg's heart skipped a beat.

"It's fantasy."

"What?"

"It's not sci-fi. It's fantasy," he explained. "The book."

"Right, of course." Meg shook her head and gathered her scattered thoughts. "Well, I'm more of a bloody murder and whoddunit mysteries kind of gal, so..."

Castiel chuckled again. Meg fixed her eyes on the dimples on his cheeks and wondered why the hell she was such a dumb mess around him. How hard was it to invite the guy out on a date? She never had this problem before.

"Hey..." she started, but the room's door opened before she could continue.

"Uh, Cas?" Sam called, taking a step inside, but then he stopped, blinking. "Am I interrupting something?"

"What do you need?" Castiel asked, immediately taking his off Meg, which at least gave her a second to breathe and pull herself together.

"Well... Dean told me to tell you that Jo told him that Ellen told her there's a woman waiting for you in your office."

Meg perked up her ears.

"What woman?" Castiel asked, squinting his eyes.

"Naomi something? I didn't catch a last name, sorry."

Despite Sam's lack of information, Castiel let out a deep sigh and pinched his nose. He obviously knew who she was.

"I better go talk to her. Can you help Meg finish cleaning here?"

"Yes, of course."

Castiel walked away with the same strides as always, but Meg noticed his shoulders were slumped. Or maybe that was just her impression because she was ever so disappointed that she didn't get to finish her talk with Castiel.

And it wasn't that Sam wasn't just as easy on the eyes, it was just... well, he wasn't Castiel.

At least he was quieter than Dean and got to work instead of dropping jokes only he found funny and trying to get everyone to laugh. Meg had caught him openly hitting on Jo with the exact same line he had used to hit on Alicia and then on her. The other girls seemed to find his shameless flirting funny, but Meg couldn't help rolling her eyes every time she was in proximity to him.

She couldn't explain why. Perhaps because that terrible arrogance, that absolute confidence reminded her of the last guy on earth she wanted to think about...

"How are you doing?"

Sam's voice startled her. They had been quietly moping the floor for several minutes before he asked that and Meg glared at him.

"Why does everyone keep asking me that?"

"It was just a conversation starter," Sam said, shrugging. "But if you don't want to talk, that's fine."

Meg clicked her tongue to indicate that no, she wasn't in the mood for talking, and kept on cleaning in silence.

"But, uh, you know, I've been meaning to ask you something for a couple of weeks."

Oh, crap. Was he going to ask her out? She didn't think she could deal with that. Sam seemed like a really sweet kind of guy. Overtly sweet. She was not the kind who went to dinners and strolls in the park or whatever other bullshit...

"Would you like to come to a meeting with me?"

"A meeting?" Meg repeated. That caught her so by surprise that she didn't quite process what he meant at first. "What, like... a meeting for alcoholics?"

"It's a meeting for all kind of substance abusers, actually," Sam explained. “But… yes, essentially.”

"Do you sit in circles and share sad stories about the time you accidentally killed a fish because you were too high not to feed it bleach?"

"There's... more to it than that," Sam said, slowly. Why did no one understand Meg's sense of humor in that place? “There’s talking about ways to cope, and a community of people who understand what you’re going through…”

“Why is every single one of you insisting on helping me?” Meg snapped. “Benny, Donna, you. Even Castiel.”

“Well, it’s kind of what we do here,” Sam said, with another shrug. “But okay. If you change your mind, let me know.”

And he went right back to moping.

Meg was too stunned for a few seconds to follow his example.

“Really? That’s it?” she asked, baffled. “You’re not gonna tell me shit about the healing power of letting my walls down and talking about my traumas? Or how I had a brush with death and that should scare into never drinking again?”

“You had a brush with death?” he asked, but then he shook his head. “You know what? It doesn’t matter. Everyone here says we should give people a chance, but I’ve learned you can’t help those who won’t accept your help.”

That had to be the most mature, most honest thing anybody had told her since she had stepped into St. Michael’s. It was actually kind of impressive.

“What?”

Meg realized she was staring and went back to cleaning. She was almost done anyway, and as soon as she was, she could home and binge-watch TV and not have to think about why all those people kept being nice to her despite her showing them nothing but contempt.

She was curious, though.

“What was your poison?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that I didn’t take you for a junkie,” Meg clarified. “I’ve met some junkies and you look too squeaky clean and not desperate enough to be one.”

“Maybe I’ve just had a lot of practice at hiding it. Unlike you, which might be why everybody keeps trying to save you from yourself.”

So he could dish it out as good as he could take it. Meg could respect that.

“Alright, pretty boy,” she said with a chuckle. She finished mopping the last square on her side and sank the mop on the bucket. Her back was aching and she desperately needed to stretch herself. “You don’t have to tell me. I can guess. You took one too many hits of a blunt and mommy and daddy freaked out? You used one too many pick-me-ups when you were cramming for your exams at whatever fancy school you went to? Your big bro got you running with the wrong crowd and you both caught?”

Sam didn’t say anything, just rolled his eyes at her. So she had finally managed to get under her skin, but she decided to leave it alone for now. Sam was his favorite of the Winchesters and there was no point in pushing him away.

They were done cleaning soon enough and Meg argued that since she had been working on the rooms longer, Sam would have to put away the cleaning supplies. She didn’t know if he was enough of a sucker to fall for that or if he was so annoyed with her and just wanted to get her off her back, but it worked. Five minutes later, she walked down the stairs and eyed at all the people eating in the diner. As the nights were still cold, the shelter was working at full capacity, though Meg believed the habitual crowd was waning slightly every day summer inched closer. Her eyes scanned the crowd, but just like every other night since February, she couldn’t find the face she was looking for.

She didn’t know why Rufus Turner would be there of all places. He obviously dwelled on the other side of the city and there were plenty of other shelters where he could go to spend the night. She hadn’t told him her name or where she worked and she had no reason to expect to see him again.

But she still looked for him sometimes. He was different from all the people trying to get her to “save her”. He didn’t want to save her from herself and her bad habits. He was just a kind old man who saw she was cold and offered her his hoodie. Meg kept it, carefully tucked away in the bottom of her closet, even though the light of day had revealed just how worn out it really was. She didn’t know what she would say if she ever really came face to face with him. Thank him again? Give him back that horrible hoodie?

He wasn’t there that night, though, just like every other night. She picked up her purse and her jacket from the hanger next to the door and exited the diner.

Castiel was standing next to the door, talking to a tall, severe woman. Meg had time to take in her grey pantsuit and her severe hair bun before she took a step backwards, holding her chin up in the air.

“You’d do well to think this over, Castiel,” she said, in a low but still tense tone of voice. She turned around and exited the shelter almost bumping in on Gordon who was just coming in for his turn at the front desk.

“Damn,” Gordon muttered as the woman disappeared quickly down the street. “Someone giving you trouble, boss?”

Castiel did look trouble, even more so than usual. His frown was deeper and his shoulders were slumped. He let out a sigh that sounded like a growl and pinched the bridge of his nose.

“No. It’s nothing.”

“Really? ‘Cause it sounded like you really pissed off that lady,” Meg commented.

“It’s nothing,” Castiel repeated, curtly. He shook his head and his cordial, calmer tone returned. “Are you leaving for the night, Meg?”

“Aye, captain. All the beds are made and the rooms are clean,” she informed him. “So, I’m leaving before someone tries to make me do the dishes.”

“Do you mind if I go with you?”

The request caught Meg by surprise. Perhaps because a part of her just assumed that Castiel lived in his office.

“Why?” she asked, involuntarily taking a step backwards.

“Because… I want to walk with you?” Castiel suggested. “Just until your subway stop. I’ll just… it’ll be five minutes and then we can go.”

Meg stared at him in silence. Wasn’t this what she had been trying to get? With all the chitchat and the looks and the smiles? She wanted him to pay attention to her, because he was handsome and kind and he had those blue eyes that seemed to look right through her and she wanted…

But her stomach was tied up in a knot and her hands were clutching her purse a little tighter.

“Uh… maybe some other night,” she said, speaking so quickly her words seemed to pile up on top of each other. “I’m… I’m in a bit of a rush today. Grocery shopping.”

“Oh.” Castiel rubbed the back of his neck. His face was blank when he looked at Meg again. “Yes, of course. I understand.”

There was a sound halfway through a suffocated laughter and a cough. Meg looked over shoulder, only then remembering that Gordon was there too. He’d sat behind the desk and was very pointedly staring at his own nails. She decided to ignore him and turned her attention back to Castiel.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

“Yes. Have a good night.”

She didn’t allow herself to think what the hell had that been all about until she was out in the street, the night air piercing in her lungs as she practically fled down the street…

No. She wasn’t fleeing. She slowed down her step to a brisk walk, cursing herself internally.

What was wrong with her? A couple of months back, she would’ve jumped at the chance to lure Castiel (or any other guy or girl she found pretty, really) into her bed, to wash off the bad taste that Lucifer had left in her mouth. And it wasn’t like the experience had affected her, not at all. She refused to believe that. It didn’t matter that her stomach still churned when she thought about that night. It wasn’t that.

It just… it didn’t feel right.

It wasn’t until she was home, halfway into her second glass of whiskey, that she had an epiphany.

Castiel was good.

He helped the homeless and the addicts, he didn’t ask questions, everyone at the shelter simply adored him, always going on and on about what a good guy he was. If Meg hadn’t met the guy, she would’ve believed they were exaggerating or that all the goodness was a façade to hide something. But no, Castiel really was as good as his reputation made him sound. He really had everyone else’s best interest at heart and he worked harder than anyone else to keep St. Michael’s running.

What would a guy like that want with an idiot, drunken whore like her?

The voice of her last therapist whispered in her ear that allowing those negative thoughts wasn’t healthy. Meg knocked back the rest of her drink and huffed.

Castiel was a good guy. He was so good he probably did the whole corny flowers and chocolates shit, he probably took his girlfriends out on dinners and bullshit strolls under the moonlight. He seemed like the kind who would want to have a wife who would support him in all his goodness endeavors or care for the children while he was out fixing the world. Why he didn’t have one already, that wasn’t really relevant. What mattered was that Meg, being a drunken whore, was the furthest from what Castiel would want. If he wanted to save her, if he wanted to fix her, well, then, he had another thing coming. Because at this point, Meg was pretty sure she was beyond fixing.

That wasn’t entirely positive either, but it was the best she could come up with.

She would have to come up with another excuse for when Castiel asked to walk with her again.

 

* * *

 

Castiel didn’t ask to walk with her again the following night or any other day the following week. He still did some chores with her and chatted as amicably as ever, but Meg began noticing he didn’t come closer than it was absolutely necessary and he partnered up with other people around the shelter as often as he did with her. Apparently, he had heard the message loud and clear and that while he still decided to be her friend, for some reason, there would be nothing else going on.

This was fine by her. This was what she wanted.

Meg told herself that feeling disappointed was stupid and continued on with her daily routine as if nothing had changed, with people mercifully staying out of her business for once.

Well, that was until one day when she was cleaning the tables after the lunch rush with the Winchester brothers. Dean was whistling to himself and seemed to be strangely in high spirits. Sam, on his part, seemed to flinch with every step he took and he was… walking kind of weird, now that Meg thought about it. He twitched and held the plastic container way too close to his crotch. Meg frowned, but she said nothing about it until she caught him almost rubbing himself against the corner of one table.

“Gross, Winchester!”

Sam had the decency to look embarrassed.

“I’m sorry,” he sighed. “I’m just… really uncomfortable.”

“Well, couldn’t you go be uncomfortable in the bathroom?”

“That’s just the thing,” Sam said, his face growing steadily red. “I think… maybe something was wrong with our detergent, because my underwear is all…”

“Okay, TMI,” Meg interrupted him. She looked around to notice that Dean was still whistling contently as he wiped a different table. “You live with your brother like a loser, right?”

Sam clenched his jaw in the way he always did when she teased him, but he nodded.

“And you use the same detergent?” Meg continued asking. “Then how come Dean-o over there has the self-control not to scratch his balls in front of a lady?”

“I… I don’t know,” Sam admitted.

Dean chuckled softly to himself and Sam’s eyes grew wide open, as if a sudden realization had just dawn on him.

“You didn’t!” he shouted.

“Happy April’s Fool, little brother.”

“You’re such a jerk!” Sam threw the plastic container for the garbage on the table and lunged himself towards Dean, who started running around the table to avoid him.

Meg guessed she should have told them to cut it off, but she was so caught up on the fact it was April already and she hadn’t even realized it that she didn’t move from her spot. Not even when Dean tried to run towards the kitchen with Sam in hot pursue, not even when Sam caught his brother by the back of his ridiculous flannel shirt, making them both lose their balance and fall… right on top of Charlie, who had the misfortune to walk out right at that exact moment.

There was something to be said about being pinned underneath the combined weight of two tall, beefy dudes, but Charlie, being a lesbian, could only moaned in pain, which attracted the attention of Missouri and everyone else cleaning the kitchen at that moment.

The large cook came out with a kitchen towel hanging from her shoulders. Meg was happy she didn’t have to be at the receiving end of her fiery glare this time.

“What in the goddamn hell are you two doing?” she demanded to know.

The Winchesters rolled off Charlie and quickly scrambled to their feet as Jo came out behind Missouri and helped Charlie up.

“He started it!” the brothers accused each other in unison and then started arguing loudly about whose fault it was. Meg only caught the words “bitch” and “jerk” thrown around a lot before Benny walked in between the two and put an arm on each of the brother’s chests.

“Alright, alright, knock it off!” he ordered. The Winchesters went quiet, still eyeing each other as they were going to jump at the other’s throat the minute Benny let them go. “What’s going on here? Meg?”

“Uh… April’s Fool prank gone awry?” she suggested.

“Ah,” Benny said, raising an eyebrow. “Well, then. I guess we all know how we’re going to solve this.”

Meg wasn’t sure what she was expecting to come out from that statement, but it was definitely not that. Every person working in the shelter that day was summoned to the diner, Castiel and Ellen included and Benny stood among the circle that formed around him as he explained that sort of bizarre game-slash-bonding experience that they were supposed to participate in.

“The Big April Pranking Wars have begun again. Thank you, Dean.”

Everybody clapped and Dean stood from his chair and took a deep bow, as if he was very proud of what he had done, even as Sam stared daggers into him.

“We all know what that means, but just a reminder of the rules to everyone and to our new members, of course,” Benny continued, with a nod towards Meg. “All through the month, you will be allowed one prank in the shelter’s premises, but only after you have been pranked yourselves. You may prank the other workers or volunteers, but you can’t prank the same person more than once, so choose wisely. At the end of the month, the last person to prank someone will be declare the winner and will earn one cake cooked by Missouri. Questions? Yes, Alicia?”

“How do we know Missouri won’t prank us by putting something in the cake?”

“Because Missouri has given her word of honor that she won’t,” Benny said and Missouri watched everyone intently, as if daring them to call her honor into question. “Anyone else? Kevin?”

Kevin was a shy Vietnamese boy who showed up once or twice a week. Meg was pretty sure this was the first time in over three months that she heard him speak.

“I’m allergic to peanuts. Like, I could literally die. So please, no one do a prank involving peanuts.”

“That’s a good point. Pranks that could cause serious harm or personal injuries are strictly forbidden,” Benny declared. “Another question? Sam?”

“This is stupid and juvenile.”

“That’s not a question, Sam.”

“I mean it. It always escalates and it ends up with people fighting. Last year, Jo didn’t speak to Max for a week.”

“Well, would you have spoken to him if he had done the same thing to you?” Jo protested.

“Look, I only did it because your mom set me up!” Max defended himself.

“Yes,” Ellen admitted. “Because you needed a lesson in humility, boy.”

The indistinctive fighting started again. People seemed really passionate about this stupid and juvenile bullshit.

“Okay, okay!” Benny called out, screaming to make himself heard above the noise. “Of course, all of this depends on our boss’ judgment. As the shelter’s manager, Castiel needs to give us permission and he also has the right to call it off at any moment, so if he says it’s a no-go, then that’s that.”

All eyes turned to Castiel expectantly. He crossed his arms across his chest and shuffled a little, as if he was uncomfortable by the sudden attention put on him.

“Well… like Benny said, as long as you keep it safe… I don’t see a reason why not.”

“Alright!” Dean exclaimed, his eyes shining mischievously as he was already planning all the mischief he could get up to. Some (like Charlie, Alicia and Max) cheered on, while others looked a little doubtful.

Meg belonged to the second group.

“What if we don’t want to participate?” she asked.

“Well, then, it’s up to you to stop it, Meg. If someone pranks you and you don’t prank anyone else in return, then the chain is cut,” Benny said, sounding way too philosophical for this being just a silly prank wars. “You can choose to let go. The power is up to you. The same goes to you, Sammy. You’re the last person to be pranked. Therefore you can choose to stop this altogether.”

“I will!” Sam assured. No one paid attention: as apparently Benny was done speaking, everybody started getting up and walking away. “This is over before it even starts, you hear me? I refuse to be a part of this!”

 

* * *

 

Sam Winchester was a goddamn liar.

It was a couple of days and to be honest, Meg had completely forgotten about the supposed war going on. Only because people around the shelter kept going as if it was business as usual: lunch rush, clean the bedrooms and bathrooms, wash the sheets and covers from the beds, take out the trash, go home. Nothing out of the ordinary, nothing that indicated there was any sort of threat looming on the horizon.

It was out of pure randomness that Mg had witnessed the first incident, and it was pure randomness that she witnessed the second.

“Hey, Ellen,” she greeted her as she walk past her desk.

Ellen didn’t answer: she was focused on a pen she had on her hand. She was shaking it, trying it on a paper in front of her and groaning in frustration when it continued as blank as it had been before. Meg was about to go into the dining room when a yell followed by the din of glass crashing against the floor echoed in the lobby.

She turned around only to find Ellen standing behind her desk, a big spill of ink staining her up until that point impeccable red blouse. The glass of water she had been drinking from was on the floor, shattered, and the water formed a big pool on the floor.

Castiel ran out of his office.

“What happened? I heard a scream…” he said, but he stopped upon setting her eyes in Ellen’s disastrous appearance. “Oh.”

Ellen didn’t bother to answer to that. She turned around with such fury glimmering in her eyes Meg carefully stepped away from her as she burst through the doors directly into the diner.

“Sam Winchester!” she shouted. “You come here right this instant! I see you, boy, you’re too tall to hide from me!”

Still screaming bloody murder, she sprinted behind a presumably fleeing Sam. Meg and Castiel exchanged a look. They both seemed to be equally startled, but Castiel recovered quickly. He sighed and pinched his nose.

“When Ellen’s done yelling at him, tell Sam to come pick this up,” he asked. “I’ll be in my office for the rest of the day… probably the rest of the month, too.”

“Must be nice,” Meg commented, stepping over the mess. “Have an office where you can hide away obviously reduces the possibility of you getting pranked.”

Castiel stopped for a moment, as if he was considering that.

“Do you think maybe that’s why they don't prank me anymore?”

“Or perhaps it’s because you’re the mighty boss and no one would dare,” Meg suggested, taking yet another step towards him. She didn’t know why she felt the impulse to be near him every time they were in each other’s proximity, but that was the way it was.

Castiel turned his body towards her and tilted his head.

“I’m not that mighty.”

“No? Because Benny said you had the power to stop everything. That sounds mighty to me,” she argued. “Why don’t you use it, then?”

“It’s harmless fun… for the most part,” Castiel explained. “And besides, it’s better that we do this while we can.”

That confused Meg enough that she stopped on her tracks.

“What do you mean? Benny made it sound like this happens every year.”

Castiel rubbed the back of his neck. Meg had begun to notice he did that when he was nervous. His face was always hard to read and he usually stood rigidly, with his shoulders straightened and his chin up, in a manner that reminded her of a soldier. But he also had little gestures like that that gave away exactly what he was thinking.

“Well…” he began, but Sam walked into the lobby carrying a mop and a dustpan to pick up the broken glass.

“Uh… fair warning, Ellen is a bit pissed off,” he said, in what must have been the understatement of the century.

“I hope you’re proud of yourself, Samuel,” Castiel told him.

Sam smiled without a single trace of regret.

 

* * *

 

After the day Ellen was attacked by the faulty pen, Jo was served coffee with salt instead of sugar, Charlie's earphones strangely went missing only to be found on the highest shelf on the kitchen (and she had to dangerously stack boxes to get them), Max's jeans ripped when he bent over to pick something from the floor and Alicia showed up with horrendous glowing orange lipstick.

"It won't come off," she groaned when people asked her about it. She was obviously mortified, but her eyes glowed with righteous fury.

There was more to this prank war than Meg initially thought. It wasn't just about watching their co-workers being mildly inconvenienced or humiliated, it was about revenge for past years slights and there was a net of alliances and betrayals that was harder to follow than a Game of Thrones episode.

For example, the Winchesters weren't allowed to come after Benny, Claire and Alexis wouldn't try to prank Jody, but they'd happily conspire against each other, anything that had to do with Patience's grades was off-limits (someone once tried to convince her she got a D in a college test and she had panic attack before she remembered college didn't grade tests like that), Garth was deadly afraid of fairies, for some reason, so the best way to get to him was to put a small paper one when he wasn't expecting it and Missouri was untouchable. No one came after her. They just didn't.

All of this information, of course, was courtesy of Donna, who showed up for the afternoon shift on Tuesdays and Thursdays now. Meg didn't ask why the change. She'd asked her how come no one pranked Castiel and instead she had gotten a detailed list of who everyone else would and wouldn't prank.

"She has access to all the food. It's just not safe," Donna explained while they rubbed the bathroom’s floor together.

"Benny is also a cook and no one has qualms about him," Meg pointed out. She knew this because Ash had ruined Benny's outfit with a water balloon full of tomato sauce and then he had offered him a frankly horrid Hawaiian shirt to wear until his clothes were clean.

"Yes, but Benny won't be cooking the cake of whoever wins this year."

"But Missouri said..." Meg started and then went quiet as Donna shot her a knowing look, as if to signal that she had been extremely naïve for believing this.

"Bobby tried to prank Missouri last a couple of years back," Donna said. "He got a cake baked with jalapeño powder instead of baking powder. It wasn't pretty."

But even as she said that, a small smile appeared on her lips, as if she was actually recalling a very fond memory of long gone days.

"Who's Bobby?" Meg asked, because she was pretty sure there was no one at the shelter with that name. None of the semi-permanent volunteers, in any case.

"Oh, Bobby." Donna sat back on her feet and took out her cellphone out of the back pocket of her jeans. "He was the grumpiest old geezer to ever exist, but he had a heart made of pure gold, he did. There he is."

On her phone screen, there was a picture of most of the volunteers and even some of the homeless people they helped with plastic dishes full of cake. The central figure of the photo was an old man with a grey beard and grey hair sitting on wheel chair, his head half inclined as if he was embarrassed of having his picture taken. Everybody looked happy and festive, so Meg figured that wasn't the jalapeño cake Donna had been talking about.

"He was also one of the greatest contributors to the refuge," Donna continued. "It was a funny story. He lived just outside South Dakota, but he didn't know his house was perched on top of an actual petroleum deposit. Black gold. The company bought his house for a lot of money, but Bobby was a widower and he didn't have kids. So he poured most of his money into St. Michael's."

"Well, that would be a reason for him to be well-liked around here," Meg admitted. "Where's he now? How come he never visits?"

As soon as Donna's eyes went dark, Meg knew she had just stuck her food in her mouth once more.

"Oh, he passed last year," she explained. "A stroke. It was the second one he had and well, he wasn't a young man anymore. We miss him."

Meg nodded, a little awkward as she gave the cellphone back to Donna.

"Rest in peace, Bobby, I guess," she commented.

"Yeah." Donna laughed awkwardly and continued cleaning the floor. "It was a bit like losing my pops all over again. You ever lost anybody you really cared about?"

It was so weird. Meg could almost swear she didn't care for Donna's babble as much as she had when she first started working on the shelter. Maybe she had got used to it, maybe she'd just learned to tune it out better.

But every once in a while, Donna asked something that was far too personal to ask someone she only knew from scrubbing floors together a couple of times a week.

"No," Meg lied. She stood up and grabbed the bucket. "I'll bring fresh water."

She hadn't gone too far out of the bathrooms when Kevin practically ambushed her.

"Is that dirty water? Can I have it?"

The question was so bizarre that Meg didn't put two and two together until Kevin stood up on a stool and carefully planted the bucket on top of the ajar door that lead to the rooms.

"I literally just cleaned that floor," she groaned.

"Don't worry, I'll clean it again," Kevin promised quickly. He lifted a cellphone a put his other hand around his mouth. "Dean, come here, I think I saw the rat!"

Dean ran in… but not fast enough to dodge the bucket of dirty water that careened directly towards his head. He stood immobile with a grimace of pain and disgust as his clothes dripped all over the floor. Donna came out running out of the bathroom, took one look at Dean and nodded.

"Oh, bucket above the door? Classic."

Kevin chuckle as he stopped the video.

"Was there even a rat?" Dean asked, shaking his head like a dog coming out of the water. "Or were you just lying? Like a liar?"

"Nothing personal, Dean. Your brother just paid me twenty bucks to use my turn on you," Kevin explained. He pushed one last button and grinned at Dean. "And since we're only a few days away from the end of the month, you still have time to win the cake. I mean, if there's even someone you haven't pranked yet."

"Gosh darn," Donna said, snapping her fingers. "I really wanted that cake. Well, Meg, let's finish the other bathroom while the boys tidy up in here, mmmh?"

Meg was so busy thinking that thank God those shenanigans were almost over that she almost missed the way Dean's eyes followed Donna as she walked past him.

It wasn't until they were alone that she realized what had just happened.

Donna had made herself the next target in order to have a better chance at winning the cake. She would only wait until literally the last minute to pull her prank and that would make her the winner of the whole ordeal.

"That was clever!" Meg congratulated her, frankly impressed. Donna was so chatty and bouncy it was hard to believe she had a conniving side like that.

Even now, she looked at her as if she was very confused.

"I don't know what you mean," she replied. "You wanna start with the sinks or the shower? And what was it that you asked me? How come no one had come for you?"

“Actually…”

“It’s because you’re new here, silly,” Donna said. “And because I understood you told people you didn’t want to participate. So the moment someone pranks you, the game is over, right?”

Meg took a step backwards, suddenly very fearful of this woman.

“Right,” she muttered slowly. She took out her brush and decided that Donna already knew she would be alert around her, so there was no point in hammering the point in. “But, uh… I actually asked how come nobody goes after Cas.”

“Oh. Well, it’s just that it’s impossible to get him.”

“Because he hides away in his office?”

Donna slowly shook her head. She seemed a little scared now.

“Let me rephrase that: it’s impossible to _get to_ him.”

She then regale her with a couple of stories that were so hard to believe that she actually dragged Meg to the kitchen so other witnesses could back her up.

“Complete freaking stone-faced,” Charlie assured her. “He didn’t even _blink_.”

“I tried putting a tin-tack on his chair,” Ash added. “He returned it to me intact and said that was very dangerous and I shouldn’t try it again. But like, he didn’t seem angry about it.”

“I changed the sugar for salt one time so he’d pour it in his coffee,” Garth said. “ _He drank it_. Like, he actually drank it as if he hadn’t noticed the change. I swear. Stop laughing.”

Meg hadn’t meant to do that, so she just took another sip of the coffee they had given her. She usually didn’t stick around in the kitchen if she could avoid it, but she wanted to hear the stories about Castiel.

“Come on, guys,” Patience said. “I mean, yes, Cas can be a bit… stoic. But he’s a good guy.”

“No one’s saying he’s not. Just that’s it’s impossible to get a rouse out of him,” Donna said.

“Or a laugh,” Garth added. “Or to even get him to crack a smile, you know?”

Meg had to disagree with all of them there. She had seen Castiel smile plenty of times while they were working together. But before she could say so, Missouri walked back into the kitchen and with a single glared, she got them all to their feet again.

 

* * *

 

Donna’s plan came to fruition just the following day. Apparently inspired by Garth’s prank with the coffee, Dean handed her a lemonade with salt instead of sugar. Donna spit it out all over the floor and then laughed heartily as she said it tasted like margaritas. Meg was very sure that it _didn’t_ taste like margaritas, but the end of April was inching closer and all she had to do was avoid Donna like the plague in case she tried to prank her.

She lasted until about half her shift on April 30th. It was her fault. She lowered her guard.

“Meg, can you pass me that cloth?”

“Sure.”

She took a step towards Donna and the former cop beamed at her.

“Thank you! You’re such a cutie potato!” Donna exclaimed, pressing a finger on the tip of her nose.

“Okay. Weirdo,” Meg muttered.

She went back to doing the dishes and it took her a couple of seconds to catch on the fact that Max was staring at her funny.

“What?” Meg asked. But it slowly dawned on her. “Oh, no, she didn’t!” She grabbed one of the clean pots and stared at her reflection. There was a perfectly round green spot on her nose, just big enough to be noticeable at first glance. “Donna!”

Donna giggled and ran away, her eyes glimmering in triumph.

“Welcome to the family!” she said, smiling wide. “You’ve officially been pranked!”

Meg had the impulse to chase her around the kitchen, but everybody was staring at her and chuckling. And frankly, she didn’t want to give them the satisfaction.

“I’m not even gonna dignify this with a response,” she said, squaring her shoulders and turning around.

“Come on! Don’t get mad,” Donna said, approaching her, her arms opened as she intended to hug her. Meg immediately jumped back.

“Keep your inky fingers away from me!”

And that was the end of her attempt at dignity. Everybody in the kitchen laughed at her no matter how many times she rolled her eyes at them as she tried to wipe off the green circle in her nose. Whatever it was that Donna had used, it was persistent: it smudged, but it didn’t totally disappear even when she rubbed at it with water and detergent until her nose was red.

“This better come off, Donna, I’m not going on the subway like this!”

“You can’t even tell anymore,” Benny assured her. “But I guess this means you’re the last person to be pranked.”

“Do I get a cake too or something?” Meg groaned.

“Well, unless you prank someone else, it means you have to go to Castiel and tell him that the game is over.”

“But after she’s done!” Missouri said, with her serious tone as if she hadn’t indulged every single prank that had occurred in her kitchen up until that point.

The whole deal was childish and stupid. She had no idea why everyone on the shelter seemed to think it was such a fun and awesome game. She was absolutely not mad that Donna had got to her even when she had intended to be so careful.

And getting revenge on her was definitely not the reason she slipped a peppermint shaker in her coat when no one was watching. She was definitely not thinking about the cake and eat it all by herself where Donna could see her.

Well, maybe she would give her a slice, if Donna apologized for making her look ridiculous.

But what really mattered to her was to show them all that Castiel wasn’t inaccessible. She could most definitely get to him and she was going to prove them all.

She left the kitchen with her head held high and tried to ignore the laughter she heard as the double doors crossed behind her. Ellen’s desk was empty and the door to Castiel’s office was ajar. That was why Meg felt like there was no need to knock and simply pushed the door open and stepped inside.

“Hey…”

Castiel moved pretty quickly. He had his head sunk on his hands, but as soon as he heard her, he sat up straight and quickly gathered the papers that were spread on his desk.

“Yes, Meg?” he asked, putting the stack away in one of his drawers. “Did you need anything?”

Meg frowned.

“You okay, man?”

“Yes, of course.” Castiel lied with such confidence it was hard to imagine just a second before he had been the picture of a very tired, very desperate man. He gestured towards the extra chair and Meg walked in, looking at him with doubt. “I’m fine,” he insisted. “Just… might have a migraine coming over.”

“Huh.” Meg sat down and looked around at his desk until she saw a piece of paper that seemed to have no importance. She grabbed and started carefully folding it over. “Well, you should get some rest. People here would be lost without their fearless leader.”

“I’m not… a fearless leader,” Castiel said. He observed the way Meg’s hands move with curiosity. “Umh, what are you…?”

“My mom sent me to a psych ward once,” Meg told him casually. “There was a lady there who taught us origami. It’s supposed to be calming in times of stress. You should try it some time.”

Castiel was stunned and speechless enough to stop looking at her hands. Meg was counting on that.

“O-Oh,” he managed to stutter after a moment.

“You worried about something?” she asked, but she continued before he said anything: “Because you see, I’ve been thinking about that whole ‘We better do this while we can’ thing about the prank war. And then Donna told me one of your main donors died last year. And that Naomi chick looked like serious business. And just now… well, you look like there’s more than a migraine bothering you.”

Castiel kept staring at her, his expression entirely blank.

“Maybe there is,” he admitted tentatively. “But even if that was the case, I don’t want to concern anyone with it.”

“That’s funny.” Meg snickered. “Everyone here keeps telling me: ‘Oh, you need to open up, you don’t have to go through this alone’.” She made one last fold and raised the paper flower she had made for Castiel to see. “So maybe you should take your own advice, huh?”

It was like watching a sunrise. It always started small, with a twitch at the edge of his lips, as if he was trying to hold it back. Then, slowly, the smile grew until it lit up his entire face, marking the dimples in his cheeks and the little crinkles on the edge of his bright blue eyes.

It was a breathtaking sight and Meg suddenly felt like her vindictive side was satiated.

“Anyway.” She cleared her throat and looked away to keep her thoughts in order. “Donna won.”

“Oh, okay. I will announce it later.”

“Cool.”

They stared at each other for a second longer. Meg extended the paper flower towards him. His fingers brushed against hers as he took him. He placed the flower underneath his nose as if it was real… and the peppermint Meg had sprinkled it with acted instantly.

“Oh, that’s hilarious.” Castiel threw her an irritated glance between sneezes. “Very mature, Meg.”

Meg didn’t listen to him, too busy laughing herself to tears.


	5. May

It was the dumbest thing.

The day Donna got her cake, they sent Meg to give a piece to Castiel and maybe try to cajole him into joining the small celebration they were having in the kitchen. Why they chose her for that mission, it was beyond her, but she didn’t complain. It was an excuse to step away from all the people celebrating and being all around noisy and happy. Though perhaps if Castiel had been there instead of locked away in his office, Meg might have endured it better.

She rapped at the door and waited for Castiel to give her permission to enter. She had learned that if she didn’t, she might or might catch him in the middle of a breakdown and that would be uncomfortable for the two of them.

“Hey, I brought you…” she started, but her voice trailed off when she noticed something on his desk.

Castiel stopped writing whatever form it was that he was writing and raised his eyes up at her.

“Yes, Meg?” he asked.

Meg blinked, still a little taken aback.

“You… you kept that,” she commented.

She didn’t have to put the cake down and point at what she meant. Castiel looked at the paper flower resting among his pencils and pens and rubbed the back of his neck, as if he was nervous that Meg had noticed it.

“I thought it was pretty,” he admitted.

Meg begged to differ. She had made the flower way too fast, so some of the petals were awkwardly bent in a weird direction, and she had chosen an ugly white paper with some inscriptions on it. It was far from being a pretty flower.

But he had kept it anyway.

She stepped in a slowly left the piece of cake next to a stack of papers.

“Dude, if you really want to, I can actually make you something pretty,” she offered. “But you have to promise to throw that one away.”

“But I like it,” he insisted.

Meg eye the flower with suspicion, but in the end, she shrugged.

“Suit yourself. Donna says if you want more cake, you’re gonna have to come and get it.”

Castiel did eventually come out of his office to spend time with the rest of the volunteers, but Meg wasn’t smart enough to sneak into it and get rid of the ugly flower when he was distracted.

So instead, she went into the arts and crafts shop on the way to her home and purchased some colored papers. She paid with the extension of her mother’s credit card and if Lilith asked, she would tell her that she was attempting some sort of new therapeutic bullshit. Once she got home, she found out that she could only remember to make like three things from her origami class in the psych ward, so she spent a while watching tutorial videos on YouTube.

If someone had asked why the hell she was putting so much thought into this, she wouldn’t have been able to answer. She just felt that if Castiel was going to keep a memento of her in his office, it might as well be something that wasn’t a sore to look at.

Not that it would matter how Castiel would remember her when she left. She was only there temporarily, after all. She didn’t know what she would do afterwards, once her sentence was served and Lilith started talking to her again. But maybe Castiel could remember her as the girl who did origami flowers and not as he nuisance and the complete mess she had been during her first months there.

It was dumb.

Meg still made carried the paper rose she made on her hand so it wouldn’t be squashed inside of her bag.

“Is he in?” she asked Ellen when she arrived.

Ellen eyed the rose and then her, but she nodded.

Meg didn’t even wait for Castiel to raise his eyes from the sandwich he was eating. She simply strutted in, snatched the poorly made lily from its place among the pencils and planted the rose in its place.

“There!” she exclaimed, triumphal. “Now you have something you won’t be ashamed to show everybody.”

Castiel blinked, taken aback, and looked at the rose.

“That is very pretty, Meg.”

“Thank you.”

“I still would like to keep the other one, too.”

“No, no way,” Meg said, holding the lily away from him. “This embarrassment is going into the garbage bin.”

“But you made that,” Castiel protested, standing up. “You made it for me.”

“It was a joke,” Meg said, frustrated that he wasn’t getting it. “You can have the other one.”

She turned around towards the garbage bin next to the door, but before she realized it, Castiel was standing right next to her.

“Don’t throw it away,” he said, reaching out for the lily. Meg stepped back and held it away from him.

“Why? It’s ugly and covered in peppermint.”

“That’s not important,” he insisted. He took another stepped towards her and Meg, in kind, backed away. “Meg, this is childish.”

Meg had to agree, but at this point, her honor was at stake. She moved to the left and Castiel mirrored her, blocking her way to the bin. She stepped to the right and when Castiel imitated her, she quickly lunged to his left, ready to run to the bin…

She was not expecting the strong arm that grabbed her by the waist or the way their feet stumbled against each other. She gasped as Castiel swirled and pinned her against the wall, his other hand holding the wrist of the hand she was holding the flower with so she couldn’t throw it away.

They locked eyes with one another and suddenly Meg was painfully aware they were so close their noses were almost grazing against one another.

“This is very inappropriate, boss,” she accused him. But she wasn’t in any hurry to get him to let go.

“More or less inappropriate than you barging in here and deciding what to do with my things?” he asked. He did not at all seemed uncomfortable with their closeness and Meg had to admire that. She had to make a physical effort to keep her eyes from darting to his lips and hoping he didn’t notice the way she shivered when he leaned even closer and whispered: “Give it back, please.”

Meg huffed, though she intended it to come out as a snicker. “Are you gonna keep every single thing I make for you?”

“Are you gonna make me more?” he shot back. “Because I would like that.”

“Huh.” Meg wiggled a little and raised her free hand to the back of his head. “Maybe I will, then.”

She didn’t even have to press much for him to get even closer, the heat of his lips almost on hers…

The door swung open and Castiel let her go so suddenly that she stumbled and had to lean on the wall not to fall down. Ellen stood on the doorway and eyed both of them with open suspicion.

“The… food delivery is here,” she announced. “They need your signature?”

“Yes, thank you, Ellen,” Castiel said, speaking far too quickly for it not to be suspicious. “I’ll be right there.”

Ellen glanced at them once more before she turned around and left. She didn’t close the door behind her.

So… that was all for play time. Meg straightened her blouse, cleared her throat, realized she didn’t know what to say and turned for the exit.

“Meg,” Castiel called her. He extended her hand towards and only then she realized she was still holding the ugly lily in it. “If you throw it away, I’m just going to pick it up from the bin. Please, save us both some time.”

“Fine,” Meg huffed. She got closer to him and let the lily fall on his open hand. “Suit yourself.”

She heard him chuckle as she left. She smiled to herself and ignored the way Ellen looked at her as she walked past her desk.

The high from having been so close to him lasted until she actually got to work and started thinking.

This was absolutely ridiculous. They were adults. If he liked her, he could just ask her out. Hell, she liked him, and there was absolutely no reason she couldn’t ask him to have a drink with her.

Except all the ones she kept repeating in her head: she wasn’t good enough. Her life was a mess. She couldn’t offer him anything except perhaps a one night stand. He was too good, he was probably looking for something different.

But in any case, they needed to either address what was going, stop it altogether or actually find an outlet for it.

She was pretty certain making origami figures and sneaking them into Castiel’s office when she was sure he wasn’t there wasn’t the appropriate outlet for it. But that was exactly what she did: more flower, little stars, cranes, even a butterfly that took her hours and several failed attempts to get right. She would leave them in the middle of his desk (which was now permanently adorned by the rose and the ugly lily) and leave pretending not to notice Ellen’s stare.

Castiel made no mentions of the figurines, but Meg had the impression he came out of his office more often those days, something he hadn’t back since back in the winter he was no so subtly trying to goad her into talking about her night with Luc. There was none of that now: he simply took up the tasks and chatted casually with her, laughing whenever Meg cracked a joke or telling her about something he had read that day online.

His favorite subject was strange animal behaviors.

“Did you know sloths’ metabolism is so slow that they can starve even with a full stomach?”

“Relatable,” Meg muttered and it earned her a chuckle from him. They were dusting the top of the lockers and Castiel inhaled a handful of dirt, which got him coughing and sneezing non-stop, which in turn made Meg laugh.

“You really like animals, huh?” she asked him.

“Y-Yes…” Castiel wheezed and coughed some more before he kept talking as if nothing had happened: “Yes. When I was a child, I was very interested in them. I dreamt about being a zoologist and travel to Africa and Australia and places like that, have daring adventures like the people I saw on TV. When I as a little older I moderated my enthusiasm and decided to become a veterinary.”

“Why didn’t you?”

Castiel looked away and pretended to be very concentrated in a spot that was especially hard to reach. Meg had noticed he did that whenever he wanted to avoid a question and well, she couldn’t blame him. She wasn’t exactly the queen of sharing hearts to hearts either, so when she sensed they were approaching a sensitive issue, she immediately pulled back.

“Well, in any case, you did end up working as a zookeeper.”

Castiel blinked at her, perplexed.

“This place,” Mg said, extending her arms to point at the entire shelter. “It’s a fucking zoo and you’re supposed to keep everyone in line.”

That made him laugh once again and the conversation kept going as swiftly as before.

Meg wasn’t wrong, though. Nothing like the prank war had happened again (thank God), but there were days that were downright hectic. Missouri fussed in the kitchen like every single day was a crisis, some of the bathroom’s toilets broke one week and they had to clean all the literal shit that came out of it and the boiler in the basement gave out one last gasp and died dramatically. Dean, who worked as a mechanic when he wasn’t there, took a look at it, but shook his head with the same gravity of a doctor that’s about to announce a patient has only a few months to live.

“I can try to fix it, but it will only be a temporary measure,” he explained. “This thing is ancient, Cas. You might need to replace it entirely to prevent this from happening again.”

Castiel pinched his nose and sighed. He looked really exhausted.

“That is not good news. Our budget is constraint after the incident with the toilets.”

Dean nodded. “I’ll do what I can, buddy. But hey, silver lining: at least it broke down while we have nice weather, right?”

If the way Castiel forced out a smile was any indication, he didn’t exactly considered that “a silver lining”. He turned around to leave and all the people who had come down to the basement to inquire about the boiler’s health followed him out and went back to their work. Meg was the only one who followed him to his office.

“Hey,” she called him. Castiel stopped at the door to look at her. “You okay?”

“I’m fine,” he assured her, but it sounded more like an automatic response than the truth. He knew Mg wouldn’t be fooled by it, so he tried again: “It’s just… all of these… little emergencies, they… stress me out.”

“Well, disgraces come in threes and we’re two down already,” she said. “Just hang in there.”

“Right. Thank you, Meg.”

He sounded like he wanted her to leave him alone, so Meg smiled at him one last time headed for the kitchen… only to be cut off by Ellen, who stood up and stared at her with the intensity of a bear about to maul someone.

“Can I talk to you for a second?”

“What did I do?” Meg asked, taken aback.

“I can see what you’re doing,” Ellen said. “Everyone here can, girl.”

Meg was immediately reminded of her mother. Lilith was always accusing her of doing _something_ , even when Meg was actually behaving for once. Ellen’s tone put her on guard. She stood back and crossed her arms over her chest.

“What exactly do you think I’m doing?” she asked, with the calmest tone she could manage.

Maybe because she thought it was obvious, Ellen refused to dignify that with an answer.

“Castiel is a good man,” she replied instead. “He wants to see the best in everybody and that means sometimes he gets screwed over. But we’re watching his back and we’re not going to let anybody hurt him, do you hear me?”

She didn’t say she meant Meg, specifically, but she really didn’t have to. The subtext in her words was crystal clear. Meg resisted the impulse to laugh in Ellen’s face, because the older woman was still glaring at her and Meg had no guarantee she wouldn’t kill her dead if she did. She also didn’t see the point in explaining to Ellen that nothing she could say would be as scathing as the voices in Meg’s own head.

“Loud and clear, serge,” she said instead. She made a mocking military salute and walked away.

The rest of the day she spent it in a sort of emotional rollercoaster. Once she was actually out of range from Ellen’s thousand-yard-stare, Meg became furious with her. What the hell did she know? She didn’t know anything about Meg, what the hell gave her the right to insinuate she was going to hurt Castiel if she became too close with him?

On the other hand, well… she wasn’t wrong, exactly. Meg’s life was a complete mess. Meg herself was a complete mess. She knew this, of course, which was why she hadn’t done anything except create stupid origami animals and joke with him when they were together. She hadn’t even really made a pass or flirted with him, not in several weeks and if Ellen thought she had any idea what was going on…

That’s what enraged her the most. Not the fact Ellen (and apparently other people in the shelter, if her words were anything to go by) thought that Meg was trying to get with Castiel and that it would be bad for him if she succeeded. She would have thought the same thing about herself if they she’d been in their shoes. No, it was the fact that for once, she was behaving, she wasn’t doing anything bad. She was joking with Castiel and making figurines for him because she actually enjoyed his company and for reasons that were beyond her understanding, he seemed to enjoy hers. It was unfair that Ellen assumed that warranted her a warning to stay away.

But then again, didn’t it? Maybe Meg had been the one to judge the situation incorrectly. Maybe Castiel was seeing things differently and if he was…

It took him only a couple of days to notice it when she stopped bringing him paper animals. Meg honestly believed it would be much longer.

“Hey,” he greeted her, coming into the bathroom with a bucket and a brush.

Meg eyed him and then at Donna, who was for once quietly cleaning the sinks.

“Hey,” she replied and continued scrubbing the floor.

Castiel got on his knees in front of her and silently started cleaning as well. After a moment, Donna was done with the sinks and moved unto the shower stalls, which was apparently what Castiel was expecting. He moved a little closer to Meg-

“What happened to my penguin?”

“Your what?”

“You… you said you’d make me a penguin?” he reminded her.

“Oh, that,” Meg said. “I must have forgotten.”

She got on her feet before Castiel could say anything else and pulled out her rubber gloves.

“Hey, Donna, Cas’ got the floor covered!” she shouted. “I’m gonna see if Missouri needs help taking out the garbage or something.”

“Okie dokie!” Donna replied from the showers.

Meg left the bathroom pretending she didn’t see the confusion and hurt in Castiel’s blue eyes.

 

* * *

 

Grocery shopping always sucked, but it sucked particularly hard on the evenings. All the office people and moms with toddlers they couldn’t leave at home were there and they were all in a foul mood after coming out from work, all the cashiers were exhausted and the last thing they wanted was to scan any items. Meg had the impression that moved slower while she marched down the aisles picking up microwavable food and snacks, as if her own tiredness made the air around her heavier.

She stopped in front of the fridge and placed two six-packs in her cart to go along with the Scotch and the vodka.

"My, somebody's having a party," a lady commented as she passed her by.

Meg didn't even attempt to smile at her. She just needed to get the hell out of there. It was Friday night and she had a shift at the shelter the following day, so she could indulge a little that night, but not too much that she would be hungover in the morning. The following night, however, she could indulge and drink herself into a stupor that would last until Monday and she couldn't wait.

Luckily, the cashier had even less interest than Meg to make small talk, so after swiping the credit card, she was out of there into the warm night. The walk home was short as she tried to calculate exactly how much money she had left until next month and how many more times she could allow herself to use the extension of Lilith's credit card.

Despite her mother's doubts, Meg was actually doing okay on her own. It wasn't much different as when she was in college studying and in any case, now that she was "a convicted felon", it wouldn't be that easy to get a job. It didn't matter. Her birthday was in July, and once she turned twenty-five...

Meg stopped at the end of the hallway. There was a person sitting right next to her door, holding her knees to her chest and hiding her face in her arms as if she was crying. It didn't take too much for Meg to recognize her.

"Ruby?"

Ruby jumped up, startled.

"There you are!" she said, smiling. "I've been waiting you for hours!"

A part of Meg wanted to demand to know what the hell she was doing there again. She hadn't seen her since that disastrous night on February and then Ruby had gone radio silence on her. Again. So why the hell did she think that she could just walk back into Meg's life whenever?

But as she walked closer to her, she noticed Ruby's eyes were bloodshot and her balance was unsteady. All of Meg's rage was instantly extinguished.

"What the hell happened to you?" she asked.

"I, uh... I need a place to crash," Ruby replied. "Just for the weekend. I promise I will be out of your hair by Monday."

Well, it wasn't like Meg expected a direct answer anyway. She opened the door and let Ruby inside, babbling as if nothing out of the ordinary was going on there.

"The couch is a pull-out, though I sleep on it closed and it's uncomfortable enough. You're gonna have to tell me if you need an extra blanket, but the night's warm, so it should be fine..."

"Thanks, sweetie," Ruby muttered as Meg left her groceries on the kitchen counter. "I know I could always count on you..."

Her voice broke with the last couple of words. When Meg turned to her, she was standing in the middle of her living room, quietly sobbing and trying to wipe her tears with her sleeve.

"Rubes," Meg said, walking up to her. "What is it? You can tell me."

Instead of talking, Ruby threw her arms around Meg and buried her face on Meg's neck. Her crying became more violent, her shoulders shaking and long, shaky gasps coming from her mouth. Meg hugged her back and gently guided her to the couch. There wasn't much she could do, except hold Ruby, pat her in the back and assure her that whatever the problem was, it would be okay.

It felt like a bit of a lie without knowing the specifics, but what else could Meg do?

After a while, Ruby's weeping finally quiet down and she let go of Meg so she could get her some tissues.

"I fucked it up," she explained finally, with a hoarse voice. "I fucked it up with Abby and she kicked me out."

"What did you do?" Meg asked, though she suspected that Abaddon wasn't the kind of woman who needed too much to get mad and throw someone out.

"She had... well, she had some stuff that she was keeping in the house for a friend. And I wasn't really supposed to, but she was out and I was bored and..."

Meg didn't need to hear the rest.

"Rubes, that shit is going to kill you one die," she groaned.

"Don't say that," Ruby begged. "I just... I had a little, but now Abby is in debt with her friend and she got mad and told me to get out. I didn't mean to fuck things up, Meg."

Meg rubbed her temples.

"I can't lend you money, Rubes," she told her. "My mom just gives me enough to survive and she pays for everything else. I don't know how much you owe Abaddon..."

"No, it's okay, love, don't worry," Ruby interrupted. "It doesn't matter. Even if I get the money, Abby isn't going to take me back now."

That was apparently the hardest part for her. Despite everything else, deep down, Ruby was a hopeless romantic. Meg sighed and stood up.

"Well, okay, we're not even going to think about it tonight," she decided as she walked into the kitchen. "We're just gonna watch a movie or something. You know, distract ourselves for a while."

"You're so nice to me," Ruby said. "You don't have to do that."

Meg didn't reply. She opened her fridge and discovered with surprise that she still had an entire pack of beers unopened. Had she been drinking less? She checked the cabinet and sure enough, her bottle of Scotch was still half-full.

"Oh, hey," Ruby said, with a chuckle. "I could use a bit of that."

"Are you sure it's a good idea?"

"Meg, come on," Ruby replied. "Since when are you not into drinking your sorrows away?"

She had a point.

Meg got two glasses, filled them up and toasted with Ruby before downing it in one gulp. Ruby took small sips from her.

"Honestly, I thought you wouldn't be coming home at all, but I was ready to wait all night," she commented.

"Why wouldn't I be coming home?"

"It's Friday!" Ruby reminded her with a laugh. "I thought you'd be out there, like, at a party or something. At the very least out with Lucifer."

Meg froze at the mention of the name and slowly put the glass down.

"Have you seen him since February?" she asked.

"He came by Abby's place a couple of times," Ruby admitted. "But we haven't really hanged out. Why? I thought you two had hit it off."

Meg filled her glass again.

She thought she was over what had happened. It'd ended badly, yes, but it wasn't like... he'd raped her or anything like that. Yeah, she had been scared to death for some weeks, but nothing had come of it. It wasn't like she should be mad forever about it.

But she still found herself having to make several pauses to drink as she relate to Ruby what had happened that night at the club.

To her relief, Ruby just listened to her with her eyes opened and her mouth slightly agape.

"Well, shit," she said when Meg finished.

"Yeah." Meg chuckled and took another shot of whiskey. How much had she drunk? She was feeling a little fuzzy, but not drowsy or at the edge of blacking out.

"I mean, I knew he was a bit of a jerk, but I didn't think he would be that stupid," Ruby continued. "Like, what if he had knocked you up, huh? He didn't knock you up, did he?"

"God, no," Meg said and she chuckled again. Honestly, did Ruby think she would be drinking if she was pregnant? Well, she was a failure at everything else. It wouldn't really be surprising if she was a failure as a mother too.

"Still... that's bullshit," Ruby concluded.

Meg laughed out loud this time. For all of Castiel's trying to get her to "open up" and "process what'd happened", this was what she'd really needed all along. Just someone listening to her without judging her and saying "That's bullshit".

Though Castiel had listened to her, too. For as much as Meg had been able to bring herself to tell him.

She emptied her glass. She didn't want to think about him now.

"Now I get it," Ruby added, with a nod. "I'm really sorry, honey."

Her speech was a little bit slurry, but she managed not to stumble as she walked around the kitchen's isle to put her arms around Meg again. Meg sighed softly and breathed in the smell of leather on Ruby's jacket.

"Men are dicks.”

"And women are cunts," Ruby agreed with a giggle. She moved away and brushed a lock from Meg’s face. “Not you, though.” Her dark eyes were smoldering as she placed her hands on Meg’s cheeks, her lips parted slightly as if in awe. “You are probably the only who…”

“Ruby,” Meg interrupted her. “Stop.”

She couldn’t handle this right now. She couldn’t handle Ruby looking at her in that way, she couldn’t handle her hands on her body. She couldn’t handle just how fun and free and everything their relationship had been and how disappointing it had been to find out that Ruby just would never take it as seriously as Meg had…

Ruby's hand travelled down to Meg’s waist as she stood even closer.

“You’re always there for me,” she told her. “You always get me out of trouble. Hell, you’re in trouble right now because of me.” She laughed. “I don’t think I’ve ever thanked you enough.”

She lowered her face, but Meg stood up, softly pushing her away. The kitchen spun over her head and she had to hold on to the kitchen isle to keep her balance. Shit, how much had she drunk? Still, she managed to loft her eyes at Ruby and speak with a firm voice.

“I don’t want you to thank me. I do it because I care for you, dammit.”

Ruby was taken aback by that simple statement.

“Meg…” she started.

“If you bothered to stick around every once in a while, you would see that,” Meg continued, emboldened. “You would know. We could be great together, but you just…”

She closed her eyes, because the kitchen was moving again and the floor became unstable. The vertigo passed, along with Meg’s need to talk. What was she thinking? It didn’t matter what she said, Ruby would be gone in the morning again. That’s how she was, that was she operated. Why did Meg even keep trying at all?

“I’m… I’m gonna go lie down,” she informed Ruby. “The blankets are on the closet. Just… just take them out and…”

Ruby could handle it from there, she figured. She stumbled towards her room and barely had time to kick off her sneakers before her knees gave out. She let gravity pulled her down to her bed, her face firmly buried in the pillows, and mercifully blacked out for a little while.

She came to with a hand sliding up her shirt and hot lips leaving a trail of kisses on the crook of her neck. The mattress was sunken and there was a soft, warm body pressed against her back. Meg blinked a couple of times until her brain readjusted and remembered what was going.

“Ruby…” she muttered.

Ruby shushed her as her hand came to rest over Meg’s breast while the other slid down to unzip her jeans.

“What are you doing?” Meg asked, unable to react.

“I want to make you feel good, babe,” Ruby whispered in her ear. Her sultry voice sent a shiver down Meg’s spine. “I want to be with you again. I missed you.”

Her fingers moved inside of Meg’s panties and softly pressed against her folds. Meg let out a soft moan and grabbed unto the sheets.

This was a bad idea. She knew it was. But at the same time, Ruby’s attentions felt so good, so familiar. And her words kept cutting down right through all of Meg’s defenses:

“I know I keep fucking up. I know you’re too good for me…”

“That’s not true,” Meg tried to argue.

“… and I want to be better for you. I really do. Maybe this time we can get it right, you know?” Her thumb slowly circled Meg’s clit and Meg moaned again. “Maybe we just need… to try again.”

Meg was reeling. Ruby had never said anything like that before, she’d never even tried to pretend that she wanted something more permanent or serious. That had been one of the sources of disillusionment from their relationship, but now that she was saying that and she sounded so sincere, so real…

She rolled over unto her back, placed an around Ruby’s neck and pulled her in for a kiss. Her mouth tasked of the whiskey they been drinking. Ruby hooked a leg around hers and straddled her as Meg fell with her back against the mattress. She docilely lifted her hands up when Ruby started sliding her shirt up, but she was starting to think they should wait until the morning to do this. Her movements were too slow and clumsy and she was having trouble keeping awake.

“Ruby,” she tried to say, but Ruby shut her up with another kiss.

“It’s okay. Just… let me do it.”

She pulled down Meg’s jeans and panties in one swift movement. Meg closed her eyes again and just relaxed while Ruby left a trail of kisses down her throat, over the mound of her breasts and down her stomach. Her fingers kept working, moving in and out of Meg in time with her moans and sighs.

Meg was too out of breath to answer, so instead she put a hand on Ruby’s head and gently pushed her down to where she wanted her to go. Ruby’s tongue came slow, teasing, but she slowly started working up towards a quicker pace. Her fingernails gently scraped at Meg’s hips as the heat rose through her entire body, until she was finished with one long trembling sigh.

Afterwards, Ruby wrapped the covers around the both of them and tangled their legs tangled together in a lazy embrace. Meg closed her eyes, but a sudden thought woke her right up.

“Do you… want me to…?”

“Don’t worry. It’s okay,” Ruby assured her and planted a kiss on her forehead. “Just sleep.”

Meg sighed and rested her face against her chest.

“I’ll make it up to you in the morning.”

“That’d be nice,” Ruby giggled.

“And then we should go away,” Meg continued. She wasn’t even sure if she was talking out loud or not anymore. She must have, because Ruby answered:

“Go where?”

“I don’t know. Anywhere you want,” Meg said. “Just… you and I. Get out of this city for a while.”

“You had your license revoked.”

“Well, then you could drive.”

Ruby laughed again and toyed with Meg’s hair.

“Yeah, why not? I’ve always wanted to see the Grand Canyon.”

“I’ll take you there,” Meg promised.

And though she was half-certain her words came out as an unintelligible slurry mumble, she still heard Ruby’s answer:

“Yeah. Thanks, babe.”

 

* * *

 

Meg woke up with the strange sensation in the pit of her stomach that something was wrong.

Well, as soon as she opened her eyes, she noticed there were several things wrong. First of all, there was too much light coming in through her window. Her headache was killing her and her mouth was so dry she could barely open her lips. And even though she was still tightly wrapped in the covers, she was strangely cold.

As soon as she turned around and stretched her hand only to find the other side of the mattress empty, she realized the reason.

“Ruby?” she called out, lifting up her head.

No answer came.

Meg rubbed her eyes and force herself to sit up. The apartment was silent: there was no sound of water running or any movement coming from the kitchen. Shit, what time it was? She looked around, but there were no traces of her cellphone. No, she left it in her purse, which she had left on the living room as she came in with Ruby. Which meant she had to get up.

The process was slow and painful. She had to keep her eyes half-closed, since the light in her room was far too bright for her liking and her headache prevented her from forming coherent thoughts as she looked into her closet for her robe. She lazily tied it around her body and walked barefoot towards the kitchen.

The feeling that something was wrong increased, but in her hungover, overslept state, it took her a second to understand why.

Her purse was over the kitchen isle and its contents were spread around the glasses of whiskey they have left there right then. She saw her lipstick, her cellphone, her tissues, her wallet…

With a pang in her heart, she approached it and picked it up. Her ATM and credit cards were gone, along with the few dollars bills of cash she’d kept there.

She found a note, hastily scribbled in Ruby’s handwriting:

_I’m sorry. I’ll pay you back._

Meg stood in the middle of the chaos in her kitchen, holding the note and unable to react for what felt like the longest of times. Then her stomach flipped and she barely had time to double over the sink.

 

* * *

 

It still took a while, some more vomiting, an aspirin and at least two cigarettes to put her thoughts in order. She’d made a mess again, and well, now she had to deal with the consequences.

The first thing she did was plug her phone. As soon as soon as the screen turned up, she realized she was two hours late for her shift and she had at least three missed calls from St. Michael’s.

Ellen sounded a little skeptical when Meg told her she was sick.

“It’s… like a stomach bug or something. I’m sure I’ll be fine by Monday. Tell Castiel that I’ll pull a double shift next week to make it up to him.”

“Alright,” Ellen said. Her voice was a little bit cold, as if Meg had done something to anger her. “Take care of yourself, girl.”

Meg wanted to shout at her, but instead, she breathed in deeply and prepared to wade through the automated responses of the credit card and the bank. It was a good thing that she had gone grocery shopping that very same day. Still, Ruby probably had time to make some purchases already, which meant that, liked it or not, she was going to have to inform her mother of what had happened.

Her finger hovered over the call button for a long time. It was Saturday afternoon. As far as she knew, Lilith could very well be in a reunion with all of her rich and happy friends where they compared their children and what they had accomplished. Or maybe she was playing mini-golf with Crowley and one of his business partners, something just as boring and snobbish as that. Whatever the case, she wasn’t going to be happy to hear about this latest disaster.

But it wasn’t like she had much of a choice. With a sigh, Meg pressed the button and waited.

Lilith didn’t bother to pick up. She also didn’t pick up the second time she called her. Meg closed her eyes and waited for her heart to stop thumping so loudly. Well, perhaps she’d have time to take a shower until Lilith decided to call her back.

She had taken two steps in the bathroom direction when her cellphone rang loudly.

“Meg, dear,” Lilith said. Her soft voice sounded terse, so Meg knew right away she had interrupted something important. “What is the issue?”

Meg was tempted to tell her she was just calling to chat, just to see how she reacted. But the less she talked to her mother, the more she would preserve her mental sanity.

“Hey, mom. I just wanted to give you a heads up. My wallet got stolen. I already cancelled my extension, but I thought I should let you know. Just in case there’s any trouble.”

Dead silence on the other line. Meg’s stomach tightened up. She was suddenly reminded of all those times when she got home with a failed test when she was very young, the way her mother’s lips quivered and her eyes barely containing the fury…

“Well,” Lilith said, finally. “I hope you don’t expect me to give you another one.”

Meg let the breath she was holding in escape. If she came out of this conversation that easily, it would have been worth it.

“Mom…”

“I think I already do enough for you as it is,” Lilith continued. “After you trashed the car and embarrassed us all. I was hoping you would take this time to recover and that’s why I rent the apartment for you, to help you, Meg.”

Meg bit the inside of her cheek to prevent herself from laughing. Her mother hadn’t been trying to help her; she had put her on the corner, like a child who had misbehaved. And of course she would care more about the “embarrassment” than about the danger Meg had been in.

“Yes, mom, and I appreciate it,” she said, through gritted teeth. “I really do. This was…”

“You have to learn to be more careful with what you’re given, Meg!” Lilith continued, now raising her voice slightly. Meg sank her face in her free hand. Despite all the aspirins she had taken, she was sure her headache was about to return. “How did it get stolen?”

“I don’t know, mom. Someone must have grabbed it from my purse.”

She was never going to tell Lilith the truth. Hell, she hadn’t even mentioned to her that she was bi. There were so many secrets Meg kept from Lilith just because she knew her mother would have a lot of opinion Meg could really do without.

“I hope this teaches you a lesson!” Lilith said, and launched into a diatribe about what exactly was the lesson Meg should learn. Something about responsibility and personal restraint and how she shouldn’t take all of what she was given for granted.

Meg sat in silence and listened to every word of it. She deserved it, she figured, because it was her fault after all. She had been the one who let Ruby in. She had decided to get drunk and sleep with her. She should have been smarter than that.

But God, what if her wallet had actually been stolen by a random person? Everything that Lilith was telling her would be the opposite of helpful.

“… how is your job hunting going?” Lilith asked and Meg snapped out of her thoughts.

“It’s… it’s going,” she lied. She hadn’t sent a single resume since she had moved into that tiny apartment to serve her sentence. “It’s difficult, you know. With the shelter and all…”

“Well, maybe you should double your efforts in that front, instead of asking me for another credit card extension!”

“I didn’t…!” Meg started, before realizing that discussion was going to take her nowhere. “You know what? You’re right, mom. I just called to let you know what happened. I’ll let you go back to whatever you were doing now.”

“Meg,” Lilith called before Meg had the time to end the call. “I’m only saying all of this because I love you. I’m worried about you, you know?”

Meg against had to conjure up all of her strength not to scream. She was worried? Was that the reason she had exiled her? The reason she’d told all her friends that she was taking a sabbatical instead of admitting Meg was a drunk and general mess? The reason she always sent her away whenever Meg had a problem that was just too much for Lilith to deal with?

“Goodbye, mom,” she managed to say.

She was tempted for a second or two to throw her phone away, but she managed to control herself. If it broke, she was screwed. She was in no position to ask any more favors from Lilith.

She headed to the bathroom again, ready to stand underneath the water stream not thinking for an hour or two… when her doorbell rang.

Meg froze and check her phone. There were no messages from anyone announcing they were coming to see her and even then, very few people have their address.

Lucifer and Ruby were among those people.

While she wondered, the person on the other side called again.

“Meg?” he called. “Are you…? Are you okay? Are you awake?”

Meg’s heart skip a beat.

Castiel looked strangely disheveled. His hair was messy, as if he had ran his hands through it several times or as if the wind had swept it on the street. He was wearing a shirt with a small stain on the neck and his trousers were creased. Then again, she probably didn’t look much better in her sweatpants and the first band shirt she recovered from her pile of unwashed laundry.

He didn’t comment on that. He smiled and raised the bag he was carrying with him.

“I brought you chicken soup. I asked Missouri to make some. It’s very good for stomachaches or the flu… whatever is it that you have.”

Meg didn’t bother to mention they were in the middle of the spring.

“Why are you here?”

“Ellen said you called in sick. I wanted to check up on you,” he explained. “May I come in?”

Meg thought about the empty alcohol bottles, and pizza cardboards littered around her place, the unwashed dishes, and the general state of disarray that her life was in.

She shrugged and beckoned him inside anyway. Castiel was always going on and on about how she needed to open herself up to people, right? Well, maybe when he’d seen the real disaster she was hiding he would shut up already, because no one wanted to see all the reasons Meg didn’t “open up”.

Castiel didn’t mention the mess inside. He didn’t even acknowledge it as he walked directly into the kitchen and placed the kitchen soup inside the fridge.

“Is there anything else I can do for you?” he asked. “Some errand you might need? I can buy you medicine or just…”

“Why are you here?” Meg repeated. “You still haven’t told me.”

He stopped babbling and frowned at her, confused.

“I did. I wanted to check up on you.”

“Why?” she insisted.

“Because… that is what friends do, Meg.”

He said it with such earnestness, with such absolute sincerity that Meg was caught off guard for a moment. Then she burst out laughing in his face.

“Why is this funny?” Castiel asked.

“Why the hell would you want to be friends with me?” she shot back. Even though she was still laughing, she realized it sounded hollow and forced. And her eyes were burning with tears. “I’m a disaster!”

“That’s not true…”

“No? You want to know the reason I didn’t show up today?” She took a step towards him and raised her chin. She wanted to look at him closely when she spoke: “My junkie ex-girlfriend showed up. I got drunk with her and let her screw me. Literally and figuratively. She stole all my money.”

His expression didn’t change at all. He didn’t push her away in disgust or told her that she was an idiot for even opening the door for Ruby. Instead, he nodded. As if it was something that just… happened.

“Do you need me to lend you some until you can sort this out?”

“Oh, my God.” Meg threw her hands in the air, frustrated, and stepped away. “You’re just not getting it, are you? I don’t want you trying to be my friend! I don’t need it!”

“Why would you say that?” Castiel asked. “Is that why you stopped giving me the figurines? Meg…” He came close to her and gently placed a hand on the arms she had crossed over her chest. “I thought I had done something wrong; that you were mad at me and wouldn’t tell me why.” His blue eyes were strangely bright and his mouth was slightly open. He looked like a kicked puppy and Meg felt compelled to unfold her arms. “Did I do something wrong? Is that why you’re trying to push me away?”

Meg sighed deeply and glanced away. It was really hard to concentrate when he was staring at her like that. She felt naked. Not in a sexual way, but as if Castiel was seeing right through all her bullshit and posturing.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” she admitted finally, in a whisper.

“Then why…?” Castiel stopped. “Did someone at the shelter tell you something?”

Meg crooked an eyebrow. Had this happened before? Did Castiel have a habit to rescue stray kittens and wayward girls?

“They did, didn’t they?” Castiel sighed. “Was it Ellen? Or Dean?”

“It doesn’t matter. It’s not like they were wrong,” Meg replied. She tried to turn her back on him, but found she couldn’t move: Castiel had placed his hands on her shoulders to keep her from running away from this conversation.

“They _are_ wrong,” he said. “And I appreciate they were trying to look out for me, but it’s not fair that they did that at the expense of making you feel lesser.”

“You didn’t hear a single word I said, did you?” Meg shook her head. “I’m not… good for you, Clarence.”

The soft smile on his lips was like a stab to the heart. There was such a sweetness about him, something so warm and sincere that no matter how many times Meg told herself she should move, she was unable to. Because the storm in her thoughts always stopped when she was with him. Because it felt safe to be standing there with him. It felt _right_.

He slid his hands down her arms to intertwine their fingers together.

“Why don’t you let me decide that?”


	6. June

Summer came in full force far faster than anyone was expecting it to. From one day to the next, there was a giant ball of radiation hanging from the cloudless skies and the buildings around the city were looking like mirages from the heat that rose from the pavement. Meg dug into her closet and fished her shortest shorts and tank tops. She noticed the looks the other volunteers were giving her for her skimpy clothes, but she couldn't bring herself to give a single fuck about it. She refused to sweat like a pig under these conditions.

Though, to be fair, it seemed like suddenly there were a lot less homeless people coming in those days.

"It's the usual summer drop," Donna explained as they stretched the sheets of several unused beds. "As the weather gets nicer, many of our usual visitors prefer to sleep outside."

"Why?" Meg asked. The shelter wasn't always the cheeriest of places, that was true, but a soft bed surely beat the hard concrete.

"Well, some people don't trust us here," Donna said, shrugging. "They think we're going to steal their stuff or that we're going to call the police on them or force them to take their meds. Other just are a little bit too proud to admit they need help."

She threw a significant glance at her that Meg decided to just ignore completely. The suggestions that she needed to "open up" or "reach out" had been dropped significantly in the last few weeks, though they haven't completely disappeared. Meg was beginning to think perhaps they were actually buying into the fact that she was a semi-functional person.

Or at least very good at keeping the pretense of being one.

In any case, Donna was right: there were still people showing up for breakfast and lunch, but at night, the usual crowd was thinner, but rowdier. She still scanned them as she was getting ready to leave, but with every passing day, she was more and more convinced that she wouldn't be able to find Rufus. Not unless she actively went looking for him, of course.

"Hey, Meg," Alexis called her when she was ready to leave. "Missouri asked if you could take the garbage out."

Meg eyed her with suspicion. She, Claire, Patience and Kevin were sitting around the table, apparently completely absorbed in a card game. The younger volunteers were in St. Michael's a lot now that they were out of school, but more often than not they were joking amongst themselves and playing games when they ran out of things to do for their shifts.

That seemed to be the case with all the volunteers, though. They were all friends and they all hanged out and played pranks on each other, but they seem to form certain cliques according to their age. Donna, Jody, Missouri and Ellen were what Meg called "the Moms". They drank a lot of herbal tea and mostly talked about their kids, grandkids or nephews. Occasionally Linda, Kevin's mom, would join them as well. Meg felt they were the ones who judged her more harshly, not just because it was Ellen who had told her to leave Castiel alone. She had the impression they also didn't approve of her clothes and her bleached hair or just... anything about Meg in general.

Except for Donna. Donna was apparently physically unable to say or think something about anyone and she was always inviting Meg to the herbal tea circle of gossips. Meg politely declined every time.

In fairness, she should have been more at ease with the intermediate group, comprised of the Winchesters and the Banes, along with Jo, Charlie, Ash and Garth. They were all in their mid-twenties and early thirties, like Meg herself, and she probably could have found something in common with them.

Except that she noticed how their laughter went quiet when she approached them and how they were inexplicably curt when they spoke to her. Even Sam, who'd had the deference to invite her to his support group, only spoke about neutral things like the weather and how unbearably hot it was when he had to work with Meg.

It didn't matter to her that she didn't really belong anywhere within the shelter's hierarchy. There were other people like that, of course. Gordon was one, but that might have been because he worked at night so nobody saw much of him. Benny was another, because he seemed to move with ease between the cliques and got along with basically everybody.

And of course, there was Castiel.

"Can't one of you take it out?" she asked. "I was just heading out."

"Yeah, exactly why we're asking you," Claire pointed out.

Meg narrowed her eyes at her. She didn't like Claire and her attitude.

"Leave her alone," Patience intervened. "She probably doesn't want to be late to her date with Cas."

Kevin hooted as if Patience had just said something _scandalous_. Meg shook her head at them and grabbed the garbage bags. Not because she was afraid of a bunch of teenagers making fun of her, but because, well... there was no point in standing around and listening to them.

And besides, they were right. She didn't want to leave Castiel waiting.

He’d caught up with her one night just as she was leaving.

“Meg, wait.”

She stopped by the door, halfway into putting on her leather jacket.

“Did I forget something, Clarence?”

Castiel had looked at her and stammered for a few seconds:

“I was wondering if I… could walk with you to the subway station,” he’d said. “If you’re not in a hurry tonight.”

Meg had been waiting for that moment. It had taken months to come again and she’d promised herself again and again that when it did, she was going to turn him down just like she had done before. This was her chance to do just that. There was no point in keep on pretending that she and Castiel could ever work out together and to do so was cruel and dumb.

“Umh… sure,” she’d heard herself saying and immediately wanted to kick herself. “Yeah, we can do that.”

His eyes had lit up. Meg’s knees had trembled.

She was weak.

“Alright. Let me just get my jacket and I’ll be right there with you.”

Meg could have used that moment to change her mind, to escape. But then she’d noticed that Gordon staring at her over the magazine he’d been pretending to read and that froze her on the spot. She’d stared back defiantly until Castiel came back and they left the shelter together.

Because neither Gordon not anyone had the power to stop her from being friends with Castiel. She’d just decided that and she was going to stick with it.

So for the last couple of weeks, he had been walking with her to the subway station every night. They took different trains, but until one of them came, they stood around having a coffee or a soda, waiting together. Castel babbled on about animals or about something funny he had read and Meg… well, she listened to him babble, mostly. She laughed at his jokes and occasionally made some herself, only to hear that chuckle of his that sent shivers down her spine.

They never talked about personal stuff: he never asked her about her family, for example, or about how much she had drunk the night before or about why she had dropped out of college. She never asked him why he always seemed to have dark circles under his eyes and why he always looked so tired and stressed when he thought no one was looking. They talked about their days and their routine and the other people at the shelter.

And it was easy. Everything about being around him was so easy. Even when they ran out of things to say and they sat side by side in silence, it didn't feel awkward or long at all. Even when he sometimes stretched his had to grab hers as they walked together or when Meg slid her leg on the bench where they waited for their subway so it would graze his, she didn't wonder why they were doing this or what their intentions were. It felt like she didn't have to wonder at all.

Sometimes it scared her just how simple and nice it all was. She was constantly waiting for the other shoe to drop, but nothing came. He didn't ask her out or made any moves that would indicate he wanted something more than this... friendship they had going. And Meg sometimes caught herself staring at his lips as he spoke, at his five o'clock shade, and his constantly messy dark hair. But she never did any of the things that crossed her mind when she did.

The people at the shelter suspected, of course. They had seen them leaving together plenty of times and Meg had the impression this was why they treated her so coldly. They all seemed to share Ellen's opinion that she was going to screw Castiel over just by standing within a five feet radius of him, but after a while, Meg had decided that if Castiel didn't care, then neither did her. They could think whatever they wanted. They didn't know the truth of what went between the two and she owed no one an explanation.

She threw the trash on the container in the back and walked around to wait for Castiel at the front door, leaning on the wall as she lit up a cigarette. She was wearing a more "conservative" outfit that day, skinny jeans and a shirt that leave her shoulders uncovered underneath her black leather jacket. She didn't think it made any difference in the leering looks she got from the randos in the subway or the street, but the woman in the grey pantsuit that parked her car in front of the shelter and headed for the door still glared at her. As if Meg was basically wearing nothing.

"Excuse you," she told her. "This is a respectable establishment."

Meg was taken aback for a moment, but then she shrugged.

"I ain't disrespecting it, lady. I work here," she said.

The woman scoffed and as she stepped into the light inside the shelter, Meg recognize her severe features and her ugly bun.

It was that Naomi person again.

That couldn't be good. She threw her cigarette to the ground and stepped on it, following Naomi before the door of the shelter closed behind her.

"... I'm looking for Castiel," she announced to Ellen. "I have an urgent matter I need to discuss with him."

Ellen raised her chin. She looked inappropriately tiny compared to Naomi and her high heels, but she still talked as if Naomi was just another unruly co-worker:

"He's in his office, ready to leave, as we all are for the night. Perhaps you should try coming to talk to him in the morning during business hours?"

Naomi narrowed her eyes at her. Ellen wasn't an easy woman to intimidate, but in this case, she might have just met her match.

"Please, let him know that I am here," Naomi demanded. "It could be very bad for you if you refuse to do so."

"Lady, who do you think you're talking to?" Ellen said. "I'm not a secretary that you can bully into letting you whatever you want. I'm telling you, Castiel is getting ready to leave and you can come back tomorrow."

Naomi took a step forwards, put her hand down on the reception desk and leaned forwards so Ellen couldn't escape her look.

"You're a very rude little woman, aren't you?"

Meg decided to call for Castiel herself before these two started having a cat fight in the lobby.

"Oh, hello, Meg," he said when she opened his office door. "I'm sorry, I got distracted by some things... I'll be right there with you."

"Yeah... I think you might to come out now," Meg said, and explained the situation with as little words as she could.

The smile in Castiel's face completely disappeared as soon as he heard the name "Naomi". He marched into the lobby, where she and Ellen were now in the middle of an all-out screaming match.

"I demand you call him out right this instant!"

"And I demand you get the hell out of here if you're not going to tell me what you need him for!"

Jo, the Winchesters and Benny were standing awkwardly behind Ellen and Gordon was at the door, hesitating on whether to move forwards. They obviously didn't want to get in the middle of this, lest they would also be screamed at.

"Ellen!" Castiel called, as he approached the desk fast. "Please. It's okay."

Ellen opened her mouth as if she wanted to keep on screaming and protesting Naomi's general presence there, but Castiel's gaze shut her up. Naomi straightened her shoulders, as if she hadn't just been involved in a heated argument.

"We need to have a talk about your staff, Castiel," she said, coldly.

"Of course. Why don't you come into my office so we can do that?" Castiel asked. He sounded calm, but Meg noticed the way he pulled from the helm of his shirt and how dim the light in his eyes was when he turned towards. "I'm sorry, Meg. Perhaps it's best that you don't wait for me tonight."

He gently closed the door behind him and Naomi and one thing was made very clear: Meg wasn't leaving St. Michael's until she knew what the hell that was all about.

Neither was anyone else, apparently.

"Mom, what was that?" Jo asked.

Ellen's mouth twisted in a tense grimace.

"None of your business, that's what it was."

"Like hell," Gordon said. "I thought I was going to have to break you up for a moment there. Who's that lady?"

Everybody was now looking at Ellen, expecting an answer. Ellen huffed and crossed her arms over her chest, apparently not very happy that everyone was looking at her for answers. She signaled for them to move closer to her desk and lowered her voice just an octave:

"Naomi Milton. I don't know what relationship she has with Castiel," she clarified, before anyone could ask. "But when she comes around, it's never good news."

"What do you mean?"

"It's complicated," Ellen replied. "You know Cas is not the owner of the shelter, right? He just manages it. The money comes from a charity that his family are donors of. They own the building and everything else."

"So Naomi is Castiel's boss," Meg said.

"In a sense," Ellen answered.

They all stared the office's door with a sudden growing apprehension.

"We have to know what they're talking about," Dean decided.

Dinner time was over, so most of the homeless people have moved upstairs. Missouri and the rest of the kids were finishing up to clean the kitchen, but Missouri immediately agreed to march into the office armed with two cups of freshly brewed coffee while the rest of the volunteers waited in the diner in deadly silence.

Missouri returned with a grave expression.

"It didn't sound good," she informed them. "I caught some things being said about 'defunding' and 'budgetary issues'."

"They're closing the shelter?" Claire ventured. There was a sudden panic in her voice.

"Now, let's not jump to any conclusions," Benny said. "I'm sure if something that serious was going on, Castiel would tell us."

"Would he, though?" Kevin said. "I mean... he has a tendency to try to deal with everything on his own."

"How can the shelter have budgetary issues, though?" Dean asked. "We all work here for free."

Man more speculations as to what was going on and what they could possibly do started flying, but Meg wasn't paying any attention to it.

She had just realize she was halfway into her sentence. In six more months, she wouldn’t have to come there anymore. So it didn’t really matter if the shelter was on the edge of bankruptcy, because in a short time, she could walk away with her middle fingers in the air and never set foot in that place again, like she’d dreamed of doing since the first time she arrived there.

What would become of her when it did, though? She had never stopped to think about it. Come December, she would be without a job, without a plan. She could go home, she supposed, but what for? To have Lilith reminding her every day how much of a failure she was? To get drunk on her own because her friends and lovers wouldn’t return her calls?

Would she see Castiel again outside of the shelter? She shouldn’t. It wasn’t going to last. It was nice being friends and all, but maybe she should just take some time to shed those thoughts she kept having about him. And what about everyone else? She wasn’t friends with any of these people. The Winchesters were idiots, Benny always acted high and mighty, Missouri and Ellen were tyrants, Donna just wouldn’t keep her mouth shut…

She watched them in silence, reminding herself of all the reasons she didn’t like them and then, suddenly, deciding she didn’t care about any of those things. They didn’t bother her as much as they had six months prior. She chewed on her thumbnail as she watched whispering, their expressions brimming with concern. She didn’t hate it, she realized with a jolt. She didn’t hate having to get up in the morning and be there. It was exhausting and she was sure no one really liked scrubbing toilets and washing dishes, but she didn’t hate it. She didn’t hate the people there. She didn’t hate the work.

“… and where are they going to go?” Sam whispered, throwing an apprehensive look to the stairs.

Right. All the homeless that depended on St. Michael for shelter and a warm meal. Meg had been so busy thinking about what it would mean for herself that she hadn’t stopped for a second to consider what their work there meant for people who literally had nothing.

As always, her thoughts fled to Rufus. She would never have the chance to give him his jacket back.

The door opened and immediately all the chatter and murmurs went quiet. Castiel stood in the middle of the diner. He didn’t even try to pretend he didn’t know they had all been talking about him and Naomi.

“I know what you all might be thinking,” he said to them. “For what is worth, it’s not as bad as all that.”

“No? So your evil rich family isn’t shutting down the shelter?” Claire asked.

Castiel sighed deeply and for a second, Meg was completely certain he was going to confess that was exactly what was going on.

“You all know that Bobby was a main contributor to our finances,” he said instead. “It’s been… complicated without him, but the Milton Foundation has been taking care of our budget since his passing. They have been… generous, but…”

“Not enough,” Sam guessed.

Castiel’s mouth tightened. It was almost like he’d wanted to say exactly that, but he either didn’t want to speak ill of his family or he didn’t want to reveal exactly how much St. Michael depended on them.

“We may be facing some budgetary constraints in the next few months,” he said instead. “They shouldn’t affect our work too much. But right now, the Foundation is worried about our spending and we need to keep this in mind.”

“Because they have the power to pull the plug if they don’t do what they tell you,” Kevin said. “I’m just saying!” he added quickly when several people turn to glare at him.

Castiel didn’t even try to deny it. His tone was excessively calmed as he continued:

“In any case, we should try to go on as usual. I believe what we do here is so important and I’m not about to let it go to waste. You can be sure of that.”

One look around was enough to let Meg know everyone was unsure and worried anyway. But maybe for Castiel’s sake, they all nodded.

“Go home now, please. Tomorrow we have to do this all over again.”

For a second or two, nobody moved. The diner was brimming with nervous energy, as if everybody wanted to say something else, to protest or to ask Castiel how was it possible that these random people who have probably never stepped on the shelter suddenly held its future in their hands. It didn’t seem fair and it didn’t seem right and there had to be something they could do.

Benny was the first to move. He walked up to Castiel and patted him in the shoulder.

“Yeah, I’m spent. I’ll see y’all tomorrow.”

One by one, everybody followed their example. They all patted Castiel, gave him quick hugs or shook his hand as they headed out. Almost as if they wanted to reassure him they were still fighting in his corner. Meg felt her chest constraining at the thought.

After Jo and Ellen also said their goodbyes with hugs, Castiel turned to her. Meg was the only one who remained seated in the diner.

“Umh… do you want us to go now?” he asked, hesitantly.

Meg wanted to ask him one more time what the hell he was doing with her. But she figured this wasn’t the right time for that.

“Sure.”

She stood up and said goodnight to Gordon was they walked past his desk. She waited until they were alone on the street to ask the question that had been bothering her:

“So… you’re really not worried at all?”

Castiel sighed deeply and suddenly, the façade he had been so careful to maintain in front of everybody else dissolved. Meg could see exactly just how tired and frustrated he was. He didn’t need to say another word.

“Shit, is it more than just budgetary cut?” she asked.

“It’s… complicated,” Castiel said, rubbing his forehead. “My family is complicated.”

“Yeah.” Meg chuckled. “I can imagine.”

Castiel’s lips quivered a little, but they didn’t quite form a smile.

“They are… they have the power to do so much good in the world,” he commented. “Instead, they choose to stay all cozied up in their houses and try not to think about the people who are less fortunate than them. And they try not to think too much about me, either.”

“Why not?”

“I’m… sort of a ‘black sheep’.” He drew air quotes with his fingers.

Despite the dire circumstances and how much she knew he was worried, Meg couldn’t help but to laugh at that affirmation.

“You?” she asked between chuckles. “Why? Anybody would be honored to even be in your remote proximity.”

She didn’t think about the weight of her words until they were already out of her mouth. They stopped in a corner, waiting for the green light to change and silence fell between them. Castiel’s eyes looked strange underneath the streetlight.

“Thank you,” he muttered.

“No, but seriously. What did you do?” Meg asked, trying to sound light and like it didn’t really matter. “You didn’t sing loud enough while you were part of the church choir or what?”

Castiel didn’t answer to that question. They climbed down the subway stairs together, cross the barrier and stood next to each other on the platform with the handful of people eating their sandwiches or nursing their coffee as they waited for their train to arrive.

“You don’t have to tell me,” Meg pointed out when the silence between them started becoming awkward. “It doesn’t matter. They’re idiots.”

“They’re not,” Castiel said. “They’re just… prideful.”

Meg eyed him wearily. He was furrowing his brow and looking pensively at the space between them. She immediately wished she had kept her mouth shut. No matter how angry he was with his family, he probably didn’t want her talking shit about them.

“Hey…” she started, but the sound of the oncoming train drowned out her voice.

“This is yours,” Castiel pointed out when Meg remained planted on the platform. She looked at the doors opening and for a second she considered staying and telling him that she didn’t mean it and that he could still tell her whatever it was that was worrying him.

“Okay,” she said instead. “I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Castiel nodded distractedly. Meg stepped inside the train and turned around to maybe tell him something else.

But the doors close and a second later, Castiel and platform became a blur and then disappeared.

 

* * *

 

He wasn’t at the shelter the following day.

“He wasn’t in this morning either,” Alicia informed her as she and her brother prepared to leave now that their shift was over. “I asked Ellen. She said that he had stuff to do and we should carry on like always.”

Meg tried to do exactly that, but it wasn’t easy with the sudden knot in her stomach. Where had he gone? Was he sick? Had he gone to see his family even though that seemed like a thing he wasn’t too eager to do?

As usual, her source of information ended up being Donna, but even she didn’t seem to know the reason for Castiel’s falling out with the Milton clan.

“I know it had something to do with his sister.”

“He has a sister?”

“Oh, several. Some of them come by sometimes,” Donna explained. “They’re a family of six. Or maybe five? I’m not really sure. He told me his father adopted most of them.”

“Huh,” Meg muttered. “Just his father?”

“Oh, yes. His dad is like an eccentric millionaire or something,” she kept saying. “He just decided to adopt a bunch of kids. I’m not sure if he was even married at the time. I never met the guy ‘cause he’s never come around, but I get the impression he’s kind of weird.”

“I’ll say,” Meg agreed.

If she was a millionaire, the last thing she would do would be to adopt a bunch of kids. She didn’t know exactly what she would do. Maybe travel or something, but definitely not that. Her family also had money (not millions of dollars, but they were, as her mother liked to say, “comfortable”), but they were nowhere near the level of “eccentric millionaire”.

“I think Castiel’s siblings run most of the family business these days,” Donna continued. “So if he went to talk to somebody, it must have been them.”

Meg nodded. That made an insane amount of sense. She kept polishing the mirror she was cleaning in silence, until Donna sigh.

“I really hope he succeeds in keeping the shelter open. Being here, working with all the people… it really helps with my addiction.”

That made Meg freeze.

“Your… addiction?” she repeated, pretty sure she had heard wrong or that Donna was going to reveal that she was addicted to lollipops or something like that.

“Oh, yeah. After I got shot, I took a little too many jagged little pills to deal with the pain, you know?” she commented, as if it was the most normal thing in the world. “Recovery was a bit of a bitch. They gave me on a desk job at the station, I put on some weight,” she added, playfully poking at her sides. “And then my husband left me. Not because of the pills, mind you, but because of the weight thing.”

Meg stared at her, not entirely sure what to say. _‘Why are you telling me this?’_ sounded like a logical question. _‘Your ex was an ass’_ was another thought running through her mind. Instead, she tried to think what someone nice (someone like Donna or like Castiel, for example) would say when someone revealed to them something as personal as that.

“I’m… I’m sorry that happened to you,” she mumbled, clumsily.

If Donna took notice of the awkwardness in her voice, she didn’t mention it.

“We all go through some rough patches,” she said, with the same kind beam as always and a little shrug. “The important thing is to keep a positive attitude, wouldn’t you say?”

And then she continued scrubbing the floors and humming to herself as if it wasn’t a big deal.

Meg went on the rest of the day a little stunned. It was just hard to reconcile the idea she had of a junkie (someone messy, desperate and careless, like Ruby) with everything Donna had proven to be. Especially because she hadn’t invited her to “a meeting” the same way Sam had done or encouraged her to “reach out” like Benny did.

And if that was the reason Donna was there… what about everyone else? She had known and worked alongside them day in and day out and suddenly she was realizing she didn’t know them all too well, except for the impressions she had about them.

“Scrub that better, girl,” Missouri said, as she placed a bunch of dirty dishes and pots next to Meg’s side of the sink. “I’m not gonna let you leave until those are spotless, you hear me?”

“Sir, yes, sir,” Meg answered, with her mocking military salute. The first few times she had done that, Missouri had looked irritated. Now she only huffed and shook her head a little bit.

Except this time, instead of walking away to do something else, she stuck around to fill the kettle with water. Meg watched her in silence and then decided she would lose nothing by asking.

“Hey, Missouri. How did you end up volunteering here?”

Missouri slowly turned her head towards her, her dark eyes narrowing as if she thought Meg was mocking her somehow.

“Why you ask?”

“Just making conversation.” Meg shrugged.

“Why that conversation?”

“Gran, come on,” Patience intervened. “It’s not like it’s a secret of some kind.”

Missouri huffed again and open the cupboards to look for the mugs. Meg was just thinking she wasn’t going to answer when Missouri started speaking:

“Castiel called me up, out of the blue. Told me my granddaughter was here and I had to come and pick her up. I’ve never heard of him or this shelter before, and I was half-convinced it was a scam until he put Patience on the phone.”

“Cas noticed I kept coming here to spend the night and he said I looked too young to be eighteen,” Patience added, with a giggle. “So he took me aside and asked me if there was someone I could call. He even offered to let me use his cellphone. I almost burst into tears. It was the first time someone was nice to me since my dad kicked me out of the house with no money.”

“Why did your dad kick you out?” Meg asked, before realizing that might have been a little bit of a touchy subject.

“’Cause I’m gay,” Patience declared.

“Same!” Claire shouted and high-fived Patience on her way out of the door to throw the garbage out.

“And my son’s a good-for-nothing homophobe,” Missouri spat, angrily. “Don’t ask me how he turned out that way. I didn’t raise him like that.”

“Anyway, Gran was so thankful to him for reuniting us she decided to volunteer forever.”

“I just took one glance at the food they were serving and I told him _‘Boy, you need someone who knows something about cooking here’_ ,” Missouri said. “These people are already homeless and they have to eat crap on top of it? That’s just cruel.”

Patience chuckled as if it was an old joke she had heard multiple times. The kettle whistled and Missouri gently laid the teabags on all the mugs. The Mom’s calming tea time was edging closer and Meg had just finished washing the pots (she had left them, as Missouri requested, spotless). She pulled off the yellow gloves. Castiel hadn’t showed up all day. She was going to have to walk to the station alone…

“You want some, girl?” Missouri asked her.

Meg assumed she was talking to Patience. She put away the gloves and turned towards the door until someone patted her on the shoulder.

“It’s rude not to answer when someone talks to you,” Missouri said, frowning at her. “Do you want some damn tea or not?”

“Really?” Meg asked. Missouri simply extended a mug to her and waited for her to take it.

It was the first one that anyone, other than Donna, invited her to some end of shift activity. Everyone seemed decided to stun her that day.

Her first impulse, as always, was to say no. Make an excuse that she was tired or she had to go home and feed her inexistent pet or something. She wasn’t friends with these people. She had no reason to be kind to them. The mantra she had been repeating in her head for the past six months came up again: she only needed to serve her time and be out of there and nothing else.

But then she thought about the blocks she had to walk to her subway station, alone, without Cas and his seemingly endless animal trivia, and her dark, silent apartment filled only with takeout cardboards and empty bottles. She decided she could use some tea.

“Sure, okay,” she said, accepting the mug. “I’m more of a coffee girl, but okay.”

“If you drink coffee past five o’clock, you’re going to be up all night,” Patience pointed out as she poured some tea for herself as well.

“What’s wrong with staying up all night?”

“I’m personally a fan of sleeping,” Claire commented. She, Alexis and Jody rolled and up and received their mugs as well.

“Don’t I know it.” Jody blew on her mug to cool it off. “One of these days I’m gonna start banging pans to get you to wake up.”

“It’s summer!” Claire complained. “And I’m officially out of high school, so I think I’m entitled to sleep in as much as I want for the first time ever.”

“Why can’t you be more like Alexis and get up early to study?”

“’Cause I’m not going to a super fancy pre-med school come September,” Claire pointed out.

“It’s not super fancy,” Alexis complained. “It’s just a school. And I told you, you can come visit me.”

“I might as well. You’re going to be super boring and studying all day,” Claire said, rolling her eyes. “I’m gonna have to go and remind you what it’s like to have fun. Especially if you have like, a cute roommate.”

“Shut up.” Alexis cringed while Claire laughed openly.

Donna and Ellen entered the kitchen talking to each other. Donna spotted Meg and even though a huge smile appeared on her face, she made no comment about the fact she had stayed that particular day.

“… I’m gonna have one cup and head home,” Ellen commented as she poured what was left of the hot water in the kettle. “Jo is going on a road trip tomorrow with some of her friends from college. She was packing all afternoon and she probably forgot to eat.”

“Oh, it’s the cute guy from her study group going as well?” Donna asked.

“Yes, and Charlie as well. Which is a relief, because that girl has a head over her shoulders.” Ellen scoffed.

“Does Dean know that Jo is going on a road trip with the cute guy form the study group?” Patience asked.

“Why would Dean be interested in that?” Meg asked, frowning.

All the women in the kitchen went quiet all of the sudden as if they had just noticed Meg’s presence there and now they were reluctant to keep talking about issues they weren’t privy to. Meg started drinking her tea faster, intending on leaving right at that moment…

“Oh, Meg doesn’t know about the bet,” Donna commented.

“What bet?” Meg asked, even more confused than before.

“Jo has a huge, obvious crush on Dean that she will deny until the end of time if you ask her directly,” Alexis explained.

“Yeah, it’s almost as painful as _your_ crush on Castiel,” Claire pointed out.

“Excuse you?” Meg said. But everyone outright ignored her protests as they went on to explain the bet:

“So we have an ongoing bet on when she and Dean will go out,” Jody said. “Because I say the crush is mutual and Dean is just little too proud to admit it.”

“Honey, we all know it is. Dean is just an idiot who won’t realize what’s going on until Jo actually gets a boyfriend who isn’t him,” Missouri said.

“I would very much preferred it if Jo dated the cute boy from the study group,” Ellen added, with a wistful sigh. “Or Sam. Or anyone other than Dean.”

“He’s a good boy,” Donna defended him. “Yes, maybe he’s a little bit of a horn dog now, but once he settles down with a girl, I’m sure he’ll calm down. Especially if the girl is Jo.”

“I have ten dollars on next year,” Alexis continued.

“I have twenty on never,” Claire said.

“I told you, you can never win that bet,” Patience replied, with a huff that sounded eerily similar to her grandma’s.

“I disagree. What if Jo marries some other dude?”

“They could still get divorced and Jo could still date Dean!”

“In that scenario, does Jo’s ex-husband try to kill Dean after the fact?”

“I want in,” Meg said, interrupting all the speculation about ex-husbands and dates that never would be. She palmed her pockets until she found a bill and turned it around to see how much it was. “I bet these five dollars that they’ll be dating by the end of the summer.”

The other women stared at her as if she had just declared that the next day she’d arrive to work riding a unicorn.

“I’m gonna manipulate them into doing it,” Meg explained. “I’m better at it than you would expect and it’s not like I have anything better to do anyway.”

Ellen was the first one to laugh.

“Sweetie, we’d been dropping hints for ages,” she said, grabbing the five dollars from Meg’s hand. “But you’re welcome to try.”

 

* * *

 

It was a very strange thing. After the conversation in the kitchen with the others, Meg felt like she’d been let into some sort of club where they did nothing but drink lots of tea and gossip about the lives of all the volunteers. She still left with Castiel most nights, but when he had something to do in his office, Meg waited for him in the kitchen with the rest.

She didn’t miss the looks the others gave them when Castiel popped his head in through the door and asked Meg if she was ready to go. Sometimes she considered asking them point blank if they have a poll going on about her and Castiel as well (Claire had certainly insinuated so on more than one occasion), but she figured no one would tell her.

So instead, she focused on trying to win the historical Dean-Jo bet. She didn’t know why she should care about it that much, except that she had completely stayed out of the prank war and well… maybe she wanted to show to all of them that despite her bad humor and despite the fact that she had been forced to be there, she could belong. Just as much as any of them.

The first step was talking to Sam. She didn’t know it, but it was also going to be the last one she took.

She waited until they were both cleaning tables and she calmly commented that Ellen had told her Jo would be back from her road trip by the end of the month.

“… I imagine Dean’s gonna be happy about it.”

Sam threw her a cautious look. If he was aware of the bet, then he probably already knew what was going. His answer was rather neutral:

“I mean, I guess we’ll all be. Jo and Charlie are great to have around.”

Having not actually interacted much with the two of them, Meg couldn’t say she completely agreed with that.

“Yeah, I bet Jo does like being around Dean,” she said, with a wink. “Are they dating or…?”

“What gave you that impression?” Sam asked, point blank.

Meg shrugged, still feigning ignorance.

“I’m just asking. Your brother is a good looking guy. If he’s not with Jo, maybe I’ll give that a try.”

“I thought you were with Cas.” Sam frowned at her.

Meg decided not to even address that.

“I asked first.”

Sam sighed and for a while continued scrubbing the table.

“It’s not like I haven’t told him that Jo is into him and he should ask her out. He also likes her,” he commented. “Everyone can see it. It’s just…”

He rubbed the back of his neck, hesitating.

“What?” Meg insisted.

Sam looked around, but they were the only people in the diner.

“He’s worried about me.”

That confused Meg a little bit.

“What? Are you into Jo too? Is this like a weird brother situation?”

“It’s not a weird brother situation,” Sam groaned. “I’ve told Dean he doesn’t have to take care of me anymore. But he seems to think that if he dares to have his own life, I’m going to fall apart fast. It’s… it’s complicated.”

Meg stared at him, taking in those words slowly.

“So… he keeps waiting for the right time and it never comes,” she suggested.

“Pretty much,” Sam agreed.

“And how long has this been going on?”

“Since we started volunteering here,” Sam said. He stopped for a second, as if he had to think about it. “So… a couple of years?”

“Wow.”

“Yeah. I think Charlie and the other girls have like an ongoing bet or something.”

“That’s ridiculous,” Meg said, completely straight-faced.

Sam shrugged, but there was no way of knowing if he did it as a way to show he agreed with her or that he didn’t care if Meg believed him or not about the bet. In any case, Meg already knew talking to him was a non-starter.

And Sam had given him a lot to think about.

“Did you know owls have asymmetrical ears? They’re located at different heights in their heads to help them hear sound in multiple dimensions and…”

Meg watched in silence as Castiel spouted his facts about animals. They were drinking a soda, because it was too damn hot for a coffee, and waiting for their train to come up. She had let him speak for a while now without saying anything other than “That’s interesting” and “I didn’t know that”. It took a while, but eventually Castiel’s voice trailed off and he turned to stare back at her.

“Is… is everything okay, Meg? You’ve been quiet.”

“My birthday’s in a couple of weeks,” she told him. “I’m turning twenty six.”

Castiel blinked, a little confused at that information.

“Uh… congratulations.”

“Not sure there’s a reason to congratulate me,” Meg said. She took a sip of her soda, hoping Castiel would get that as one of her usual displays of bleak humor and continued on: “Anyway, I was thinking of maybe ordering a pizza and watching a movie.”

As if that wasn’t her usual weekend activities.

“Something calm.” Castiel nodded. “Perhaps that’s…”

“Would you like to join me?” Meg asked him. “It’d be like… like a date.”

There. She’d said it. Maybe a little too fast, because maybe she was a little nervous about it. But it was out. And Castiel was staring at her, blinking at her, stunned. So even though she could feel the blood rushing up to her face, she held his gaze. She wasn’t going to back down from this.

After a few seconds, he cleared his throat.

“I… yes. Yes, I would like that.”

“Okay,” Meg said. She hoped her voice wouldn’t reveal the way her stomach was doing backflips. “So we’re doing that.”

Castiel continued looking at her, still incredulous. As if he still couldn’t quite process what Meg had said. Meg herself wasn’t sure this had been the soundest idea, but she was not backing down. He opened his mouth to say something else…

The train stopped in front of them with a rattle.

“Oh,” he muttered. “It’s… this is yours.”

“Yes.”

She didn’t know why suddenly she had become the least eloquent person in the world, but it was best if she left before she actually said something stupid or embarrassing. She waited until a couple of people had got in and then stepped inside as well. She turned around to look at Castiel as the doors closed.

She had time to see him smile before the train sped up down the tunnel.


	7. July

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: This chapter deals with issues of past emotional and sexual abuse by a partner. Discretion is advised.

One of the advantages of having a summer birthday was that very few people remembered it. When she was younger, Meg had considered that a curse: all other kids got to throw birthday parties on the weekends and everybody went and had tons of fan because they got to hand out the invitations during class. Her birthdays usually only had the handful of people she could call on the phone and convince to show up.

As she grew older and lonelier, though, she started seeing the upsides of it. She got to choose who she’d spend the day with and usually that meant what her mother called “the wrong crowd”: the fun kids who had things like fake IDs to get booze and were pals with pot dealers. She remembered one particular birthday, three or four years ago, where she had spent the night tripping on acid with Ruby. That had been before she started disappearing and doing harder stuff Meg had decided not to touch.

The last couple of birthday, though, she had spent them alone. Either in her home while Lilith and Crowley were away or in the couch of some other party she’d crashed in the hopes that it’d made her forget what day it was. She’d drunk herself into a stupor in both occasions and if she hadn’t invited Castiel that year, she probably would have done the exact same thing this time around.

She hated how birthdays reminded her of the passage of time. She hated that she was a good-for-nothing college dropout that had been fired from two jobs because she didn’t care to show up sober and was basically exiled from her house for destroying the car. Just to make her self-pity worse, she decided to open her Facebook account (which she didn’t use too much those days) and look at what people she’d known in high school were doing with their lives. Some were getting married (why?), some were having babies (God, no), some were travelling the world.

And she was in her small apartment, with a half empty bottle of booze, trying to figure out when had her life gone downhill.

It was easy to put up a careless façade in front of others. It was easy to pretend she knew she was going nowhere fast and she was going to drink, smoke and fuck the whole way there when someone asked about her plans for the future and bullshit like that. It was easy to say that nothing mattered out loud for others to hear.

But when she was all alone, when there was no one to fool, it was another beast entirely. That was when the voices started getting loud and it didn’t matter what she did, they always got to her. They kept telling her she was worthless, useless and she was running out of time, but why even try anything? She was just going to screw it up anyway.

So she drank until they shut up. Or until she blacked out. Whichever happened first.

The second day of her birthday week, she woke up and stared at her ceiling for what felt like a few minutes. She had gone to sleep early the night before, but she still felt like a drained battery. Lately, she had been handling it, this whole waking up, getting a shower, go to the shelter, make small talk with Donna and the others and come back home. She had even been a little excited to see Castiel and walk with him and…

But as her birthday approached, it had been getting harder and harder to fight the weight on her chest that kept her pressed to the mattress every morning. And that day in particular, it felt like the sheets were a ton of bricks. She closed her eyes and then opened them again.

She wanted to cry, but she was an empty husk. There were no tears inside of her, just an infinite tiredness. The very idea of walking towards the bathroom made her feel exhausted. She sighed deeply and looked at her phone: an hour had passed and she hadn’t moved an inch.

Well, fuck.

She hadn’t taken a sick day since the whole Ruby mess in May. She figured she’d do it again, because at this point it was just too late to even try.

She struggled for a few more minutes to gather the energy to call.

To her surprise, it was Donna and not Ellen who picked up the phone.

“Meg! We were wondering what happened to you. Where are you? Are you okay?”

God, she could just picture her, all sunshine and happiness sitting behind the desk.

“Yeah… no,” Meg muttered. “I don’t think I’m coming in today.”

“Why not? Is everything okay?”

Meg hesitated as she looked for an excuse. It was too late to say that she was sick because she could have lowered her voice and made it sound like she had a cold. But that was ridiculous, who got a cold in the middle of the damn summer? And she had already used the excuse of the stomach bug with Ellen and besides…

“Meg?” Donna called and she realized with a startle that she had been quiet for several seconds.

“I’m just… I’m feeling a little…”

“Under the weather?” Donna suggested.

That was a nice, neutral way to put it. And in any case, Meg didn’t want to keep thinking.

“Yeah. Exactly.”

“Okie, dokie, no problem,” she said. “I’ll tell Cas…”

“No, don’t!” Meg exclaimed.

The last time she had been absent from the shelter, Castiel had showed up there with kitchen soup and medicine. She didn’t think she couldn’t handle him doing that again. Especially because then she’d had a reason to feel shitty. Now, she simply had no excuse. “I just, I don’t… I don’t want to bother him.”

There was a long, slow pause.

“Okay,” Donna agreed in the end. “Don’t worry. You feel better now.”

Meg thanked her (or she thought she’d at least muttered a ‘thanks’), turned off the phone and rolled over herself to fall back asleep.

It was a shitty thing to do and no one had to tell her. She had no reason to feel this sorry for herself. The only reason she had to be in the state she was in right now was because she had allowed herself to be. God, she was so pathetic. Why the hell had she thought inviting Castiel over that weekend was a good idea? He was going to see right through her and realize it was in his best interest to stay far, far away from her.

But despite all those ugly thoughts and knowing that she was right about them, at least this time, Meg didn’t call him to cancel the date. She just laid back in bed, staring silently at the ceiling. Tomorrow, she promised herself. Tomorrow she was going to march into the shelter and tell Castiel what she should have said from the beginning: that it was a mistake, that she appreciated what he had been trying to do for her, but that it simply couldn’t…

Someone knocked on the door and Meg groaned and pulled the covers over her head. Whoever it was, they needed to leave her the fuck alone. If it was Castiel, she simply would pretend she hadn’t been home or something. She just couldn’t bear the idea that he would see her like that.

Her cellphone rang. Meg felt around the floor until she found it and blindly rejected the call. She should have turned it off two, because two seconds later it was ringing again.

Well, he was fucking insistent, wasn’t he? With a sigh, she placed the phone against her ear.

“Cas, I’m sorry. I can’t see you right now.”

“Well, it’s a good thing I’m not Castiel, then,” Donna said. Her cheery tone was almost jarring. “Why don’t you open up for me, Meg? I brought you some food.”

Meg was so stunned that for a moment or two, she remained speechless.

“Why are you here?” she asked, finally.

“Because you sounded really down on the phone and I wanted to check on you,” Donna said. “Don’t worry, I sneaked out without telling Castiel anything.”

Meg looked down at herself. She was wearing an ugly shirt with a stain of God knew what and panties. She hadn’t brushed her teeth and her hair was a tangled mess.

She was in no condition to be seen by anybody, whether it was Castiel or not.

“I, uh… well, I’m not… presentable…”

“Oh, don’t worry about it, honey. I’ve seen all sort of things in my life,” Donna said, undeterred. “You wanna open for me now?”

Meg was two seconds away from telling her that no, she wasn’t going to open for her and goddamn her for coming all the way there and make her feel like even more like a piece of shit for shutting everyone and everything. She wanted to tell her she was in no condition to deal with her smiles and her sunshine right now, that she didn’t need anyone’s pity and to go to hell.

She wanted to, but being angry just sounded incredibly exhausting.

“Fine,” Meg muttered, gritting her teeth. “I’m coming.”

She pulled up a pair of sweatpants and put on her most tired face. Donna, however, still smiled at her when she opened.

“Hello, friend!” she said. “Are you hungry? I got Italian!”

She made no comment on Meg’s appearance or on the state of her apartment. She simply pushed away the glasses and dirty dishes Meg had left over the counter and placed the bag she had brought there. She extracted two Styrofoam containers and a couple of plastic forks and extended one to Meg.

“Uh…” Meg hesitated and scratched her arm. She briefly looked at the clock that hanged on her living room to confirm that it was indeed lunch time. “I haven’t had breakfast.”

“Oh, that’s okay,” Donna assured her. She rummaged through the bag for a second and extracted a pretzel almost as big as Meg’s head. “You can have this with some cottage cheese and a bit of coffee and it’ll make for an excellent brunch!”

Meg stared at her for a few seconds.

“Did you just… come prepare for everything?”

“For everything and anything.” Donna nodded. As if to demonstrate, she also extracted a pot of cottage cheese and a small plastic knife so Meg could spread it over the pretzel. “Come on, let’s eat. I’m sure you’ll feel good afterwards.”

Meg wasn’t hungry. Or maybe she just didn’t feel hungry, but she hadn’t eaten anything since the bag of chips she had finished the night before along with her beer, so she supposed she could have something. Once she was sat with the pretzel, Donna turned around and started operating the coffee maker. She made no comment about the dirty filter and she hummed happily as she searched for a mug, before realizing they were all dirty and in the sink.

“Oh, no, Donna.” Meg stood up, her face flushing. “You don’t have to…”

“It’s no trouble!” Donna insisted, with the same beam as always. She grabbed the sponge Meg kept next to the sink and smiled at her. “But if you want to rinse as I wash, I’m sure we’ll finish up before the coffee is ready.”

Meg couldn’t argue with that logic. They set out to wash the rest of the dishes, but they only had done half by the time the coffee maker wheezed. Donna grabbed the first mug she had washed and poured the coffee in, assuring Meg that they could finish washing after they were done eating.

Meg didn’t ask her if her spaghetti was cold and Donna didn’t complain as she sank her plastic fork into them.

“So. You and Cas, huh?” Donna asked, raising an eyebrow.

Meg almost choked on her coffee.

“Who told you?” she asked.

“Well, Charlie told me that Sam had told her that Dean had told him that Castiel had asked him for advice on what to wear for a date he has this weekend,” Donna explained. “I just connected the dots.”

Meg should have known. Was everyone at St. Michael’s a complete gossip? She stirred her coffee, pensively.

“I just… I don’t know. I thought it was a good idea at the time.” She cringed.

“Do you like Cas?”

“Is there anyone who doesn’t like Castiel?” Meg shot back, knowing full well that wasn’t what Donna meant.

Donna didn’t insist, though, save for nodding as if she had just understood something.

“Well, honey, if you ask me, I think it’s great!” she said, simply. “Cas doesn’t go out much and he doesn’t have much outside his job. I’m glad you decided to ask him out.”

Meg narrowed her eyes at her.

“Do you have some sort of financial investment in me asking Cas out?”

“No.” Donna shook her head. “I honestly think this will be good for him. It might take his mind off of things for a little while.”

She didn’t say anything about how it would affect Meg, and she didn’t have to. Perhaps she thought Meg wouldn’t accept her approval and she was right: if Donna had insisted on how great it was for her, Meg might have called the whole thing off. Just because she didn’t want this to be “good for her”. She just wanted it to be about her and Castiel, spending time together.

Maybe finding out exactly what the hell it was that was happening between the two.

“Now.” Donna slammed her fork down as if she was punctuating a statement. “What do you say if we have a girls’ afternoon? Do you want me to help you with your hair?”

“My hair?” Meg repeated.

“Your roots are a little bit noticeable,” Donna explained. “Maybe I can help you bleach them.”

Meg grabbed a lock of her hair and twisted it between her fingers. Yes, maybe it was time she washed it and get it ready. She was a mess, but she didn’t want to be a mess come Saturday. She wanted to look nice enough for Castiel.

It was stupid. But the thought put a little smile on her lips.

“Okay, fine,” she said, glancing away so Donna wouldn’t notice. “We can do that.”

“Awesome!” Donna clapped her hands, excited. “Why don’t you go get a shower and get dressed so we can go buy what we need? I’ll clean this up,” she added, gesturing to the half uneaten pretzel and the empty container.

Meg should’ve known there would be a catch in that suggestion, but she didn’t quite mind. She spent an hour long underneath the shower, feeling the hot water tapping against her skin, and afterwards, she spent a while looking for clean jeans and a shirt. Donna was right. Her natural dark brown roots were starting to grow out too much.

When she came out of her room, clean and dressed, she noticed that Donna had been gathering her garbage and putting it on plastic bags by the door.

“I just thought it would be easier for you to take it out that way,” she said, when Meg insisted she didn’t have to do that. “You know, whenever you need to.”

Meg understood exactly what she was doing. Donna hadn’t gone as far as to straight up clean up the entire apartment. She had washed the dishes, but she hadn’t put them away in the cupboards. She had just made all the mess a little bit more manageable. So Meg wouldn’t feel overwhelmed when she tried to do it herself.

“Donna…” she started, but she got choked up before she could say another word. Donna smiled at her kindly.

“Now, why don’t we go buy the things we need?”

The walk to the store in the dwindling afternoon heat also helped clear Meg’s head a lot. She realized she had been in her apartment for far too long, letting the voices sink her down. She should’ve got up that morning. She should’ve gone to the shelter, if only to keep herself busy…

“Oh, Meg, look at this!” Donna exclaimed, almost skidding down the aisle with a hair dye in her hand. “You’re going to look so cute with this! You should try it!”

She was so enthusiastic about it Meg didn’t have the heart to tell her no. Even though she was still nervous two hours later when she washed off the last traces of the dye and looked at herself in the mirror. Donna had chosen a darker shade of blonde that was more golden than the pale bleached tone that Meg had got used to wearing the past couple of years. She wasn’t convinced it agreed with her.

She didn’t dislike it either. It was just… different. Perhaps different was good.

“I love it!” Donna said, but Meg already knew that was going to be her opinion. “It’s very becoming for you.”

“Yeah… might take some getting used to,” Meg replied with a grimace. But she knew what Donna was trying to do. What she had been doing all day long. “Thank you.”

Donna beamed at her and extended her arms. And well, after she had dragged Meg out of her nest of depression, she couldn’t refuse. Donna held her tight for a long while and patted her in the shoulder a couple of times.

“Now, it’s getting kinda late, so I’m gonna head home,” Donna announced. “I left the spaghetti for you in the fridge so you can have dinner. Don’t forget to eat it. You’re getting a little bony on me, girl,” she added, poking at Meg’s side.

She laughed. For what felt like the first time in weeks, Meg laughed at the comment. Donna nodded, satisfied, and picked her bag on the way to the door.

“I will see you tomorrow, okay?”

“Okay,” Meg promised. “Goodnight, Donna.”

There was a moment of fear, of panic, that the voices would return louder than before once Donna closed the door behind her. But none of that happen. She was just left alone with a strange sensation of calm, of silence she could enjoy and not feel the desperate need to fill out. She stared at the garbage bags neatly lined up next to the door and decided that since Donna had gone through the trouble of cleaning up the garbage, she might as well take them out. She also put away the now dried dishes and mugs and after it was done, she stood next to the open window for several minutes, breathing in the night air. The cigarette between her fingers was a pale little light compared to the city beyond.

It was only then that she realized that, other than some details about her upcoming date with Castiel, Donna hadn’t asked any questions. She hadn’t asked how long it was since Meg took a shower or since she ate properly. She hadn’t asked how Meg was feeling or how much she had drunk that day. She had shown up, spent the afternoon with her and then left.

And that had been just what Meg needed. No sitting around moping, no talking about the shit that went on in her head. Just something small and practical like dying her hair and eating a pretzel.

She wondered why sometimes she couldn’t even manage that. No. She shook her head. There would be times when she wouldn’t be able to fight off those thoughts. But that wasn’t going to be that night.

She crushed her cigarette against the window ledge and retreated inside to eat her spaghetti.

 

* * *

 

Castiel noticed the change in her hair color. Of course he did.

“It’s, uh… it looks brighter,” he commented, standing awkwardly in his office’s doorway while Meg signed in her entry. He had come out as soon as he heard her greeting Ellen. Meg liked to believe that he’d been anxious to see her and not that he’d been worried because she had decided not to show up the day before.

“Yeah, Donna said it would,” Meg said, with a shrug. “You like it?”

The slow smile in his face was answer enough for her.

“Yeah. It looks very pretty,” he said. He swallowed hard and leaned against his door for a moment. “Are we, uh… are we still on for this Saturday?”

Meg stared at him for a moment, thinking about all the things she had thought the day before. Thinking how she’d been crushed by the sheer weight of them and how Castiel didn’t deserve that.

She was too selfish.

“Yeah, of course,” she said, with a smirk. “I’m looking forwards to it.”

“Alright, girl, get a move on,” Ellen interrupted them. “Those toilets ain’t gonna scrub themselves.”

Meg made a military salute and walked past the desk. She tried not to think about Castiel’s eyes boring into her back.

She made an effort, that week. She felt like she had to. After what Donna had done for her, she couldn’t let the voices convince her it was a good idea to stay in bed all day. Or to not take the trash out. Or to let the empty bottles pile up on the kitchen isle. She was still taking a shot (or two or three) every night in order to get herself to sleep, but she had noticed that the whiskey was lasting longer those days. And she hadn’t touched the pills in a while.

She didn’t know how long she could keep it. She told herself that just holding it together for that week would be more than enough. Just until Saturday. Just until her actual birthday and her date with Castiel.

“He’s busy,” Ellen said.

“What?” Meg replied, trying to pretend that she hadn’t been staring at Castiel’s door.

“He said he was going to be busy all day and not to interrupt him,” Ellen explained.

“Oh,” Meg said.

That was disappointing. After the tense chat she’d had with her mother that morning (“I don’t understand you refuse to spend time with your family, Meg”), she had wanted to see him. To talk to him. To make sure… she didn’t even know. Just see him and hope the day would be better.

“Happy birthday, by the way,” Ellen commented. Her voice sounded louder than usual, as if she was trying to make herself heard in miles around. Meg frowned at her, but she didn’t comment on that.

“Thanks.”

She was too distracted. Otherwise, she would have stopped to wonder how Ellen had known what day it was. She would have stopped to fear if there was someone else who knew and how she was going to react when they said anything. She would have stopped to think if it was a good idea to cross the door into the diner knowing she was dealing with a group of people who thought playing pranks on each other was a form of community bonding.

The confetti and serpentines flying at her face startled her enough that she gasped and had to take a step back before she realized what was going on.

“What the…?” Meg muttered. Several of the volunteers were apparently waiting for her, hooting and cheering. Charlie was even singing “Happy birthday” at the top of her lungs. Meg stared at their faces for a moment until she located Castiel, standing by the side with a smirk on his lips. “You’re such a snitch!” she accused him.

“You said you wanted something small,” Castiel reminded her. He lifted up a cupcake with a single candle burning on top of it. “This is as small as we could go.”

Meg scoffed, but there was a strange, fluttery feeling in her chest as she leaned forwards and blew the candle out. The others clapped loud and long as Meg whispered “Thank you, thank you” over and over.

It was odd. She didn’t feel like they were manipulating her into doing anything. She didn’t feel like they were doing all of this because it was polite to congratulate someone on their birthday. It was almost as if they were actually happy that she had been born on that day, despite how much of nuisance and an anti-social ass she had been to all of them.

She wasn’t used to that.

“Alright, you have five minutes to eat your birthday cupcake,” Missouri announced. “Then you’re going to start by sweeping here before the lunch rush, you hear me?”

“Why, thanks,” Meg replied, rolling her eyes at her. “Just what every girl wants for her birthday.”

Donna approached her and gave her a kiss in each cheek. “I’ll help you sweep,” she promised, before she followed the rest as they started moving out to start their duties for the day.

“I’m going to be in my office. I have some business that need to be taken care of before Monday,” Castiel said, once they were alone. “But if you want us to leave a little early, just come knock on my door.”

“Sure thing.”

Castiel handed her the cupcake and stood very close to her. Meg waited for him to say something, but several seconds passed and not a word came out of him. He just stared at her, with those big, blue eyes that always seemed to be shining bright, especially when he was happy or excited and Meg just couldn’t wrap her head around how expressive they were and…

He lifted his hand and touched her head. Meg was very confused for one second until he drew out a serpentine that had got caught in her hair.

“You had a…”

“Oh.” Meg chuckled. “Okay.”

She tried to move away, but Castiel stepped forwards at the same time and they almost ended up crashing. They both chuckled and circled around one another until they were in the direction they each had to go.

They still didn’t move for several seconds. This was getting ridiculous.

“Umh… see you later, Clarence.”

Castiel seemed to remember that he had to be elsewhere, laughed awkwardly and finally left the diner.

Meg sat on one of the chairs to tear her cupcake apart, her heart still beating hard. It was almost as if it was just dawning on her that this was going to be different. This wasn’t going to be like with Ruby or Lucifer. Castiel wasn’t just going to screw her and just disappear the morning after. They might even end up going on another date. They might even end up (and Meg shuddered at the thought) actually having a relationship.

Could she keep it up? Everything she had been doing that week, could she keep up with the pretense that she was a somewhat well-adjusted person, that she had everything under control?

And what would happen if she couldn’t?

Donna planted a broom next to her chair.

“Well, better start cleaning now, right?” she said, with a wink.

Meg shook her head to chase away all of her thoughts. Whatever happened, would happen. There was no point in worrying about it.

She still worried about it.

She worried about it when she knocked on Castiel’s door later that day, when he placed a hand on her back to help her as they stepped together in the train. She worried while they walked together down her dimly lit street and climbed the stairs to her apartment, laughing and joking about things that had happened that day in the shelter or about something else entirely. She couldn’t even remember what by the time she opened her door and turned on the lights. She just knew that it was something funny, but even as she laughed she could still feel her stomach tied up in a knot.

Castiel took a few steps inside and then turned around to her with a smile.

“Oh, by the way,” he said, feeling up the pocket inside of his jacket. “I got you something.”

The present was rectangular and wrapped in bright red paper. Meg held it in her hand, completely sure what it was.

“It’s not _The Knight In Rusty Armor_ , is it?” she asked.

“No.” Castiel laughed. “It’s a mystery novel. You said you liked those.”

She had mentioned that, months ago. She couldn’t believe he remembered that. He was always so attentive and kind towards her and she wasn’t sure she deserved it. No, she knew she didn’t deserve it,

But, by God, she wanted to.

Castiel pulled from the helm of his shirt, uncomfortable.

“So… do you want to order the pizza…?”

Meg threw the present over the couch and walked up to him. She had to use that fit of courage, the one moment where she wasn’t overthinking or letting her fears and self-hate control her.

Because she didn’t know how long it was going to last.

Castiel’s mouth felt warm against hers and he didn’t move immediately, startled. But after a second, his arms slid around her waist and his lips parted with a sigh, allowing her to deepen the kiss.

And it was just as she had imagined. The electricity running up her back, the way everything seemed to click into place, the way her heart began racing. They had just began and she was already dizzy, intoxicated with _him_.

Meg slid her hand from the back of his head to his cheek, down to his neck. He moaned softly when she nibbled his lower lip at the same time she slid his jacket off his shoulders and let it fall to the floor.

“Meg…” he started saying, but Meg didn’t let him continue.

There would be time for talking. Later. Right now she wanted him. She had wanted him for so long and now he was finally there, she wasn’t about to let it all go to waste by overthinking every single thing. She was done with that.

She spin him over and softly pushed him down on the couch. In a single movement, she got rid of her shirt and climbed his lap, placing her mouth right underneath her jaw as her fingers worked the buttons of his shirt.

“Meg,” he said again. “Stop. Please, stop.”

His hands were no longer on her. His body was no longer relaxed, but rigid and when she moved away, he moved his head to the side, as if he was trying to avoid looking at her. There were tears on the edge of his close eyelids and his chest was rising and falling fast, way too fast for it to be mere excitement.

“Cas?” she called out. She stretched her hand and turned on the lamp next to the couch. His face and lips had gone pale and after a second, he started squirming underneath her.

“I’m sorry,” he muttered. His voice was broken and somehow rougher than usual. “I’m sorry, I can’t…”

“Woah, okay.” Meg stood up and took a couple of steps backwards. Her brain was working hard to adjust to this new situation. “Calm down. I’ll… I’ll bring you a glass of water, okay?”

Castiel didn’t answer. He just leaned forwards and placed his head between his legs, taking in deep gulps of breath at the time. In the time it took Meg to come back from the kitchen, he was somewhat less agitated, but there were tears streaming down his cheeks and his face was still too pale for it not to be worrying. Meg sat by his side and held the glass of water to his lips until he could lift up his trembling hands and sip from it himself.

“Cas, what is it?” Meg asked, a different kind of worry taking grip of her quickly. “What’s wrong? How can I help?”

“I just… I just…” he muttered, but then he shook his head.

Meg hesitated with a hand on his forearm, not sure if she should try to hug him or not when that had been what had given him that reaction in the first place. But her problem was resolved when Castiel turned around, buried his face in her neck and dissolved into a mess of uncontrollable sobs. He kept mumbling that he was sorry and Meg didn’t know what else to do except hold him close, patting him in the back and telling him that it was okay, that it was going to be okay and asking him if he needed more water. The knot in her stomach had moved up to her throat and it was hard to describe why.

She just had never imagined someone as stoic as Castiel could fall apart in such a manner.

Apparently, neither had Castiel himself. After several minutes, he took a deep, shuddering breath.

“Fuck.”

That surprised Meg enough that she had to back down. Castiel rubbed his eyes, still breathing heavily but clearly calmer than before.

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, his eyes fixed on the floor. “Oh, dammit. I should’ve told you… Benny said that I should’ve told you. He was right, as usual.”

He sounded frustrated and tired. Meg stared at him, not sure how to answer to that.

“What… what are you…?”

Castiel emptied what was left in his glass of water in one gulp and leaned back down on the couch.

“Sometimes… many times… when I try to… become intimate with someone, I…”

“You have a small panic attack on them?” Meg asked. She tried to sound light, but she didn’t get it right, judging by the way Castiel cringe and stood up.

“I should go,” he decided, already heading for the door. “I’m sorry I ruined your birthday, Meg. Nothing was further from my intention.”

“No, Clarence. Wait!” Meg stumbled to her feet, grabbed her shirt from the floor and caught up with him before he reached for the doorknob. Her hand on his forearm was enough to get him to stop. “Cas… why didn’t you tell me?”

Castiel avoided her gaze for several seconds, frozen as if he still wanted to run away. But eventually, very slowly, he turned towards her.

His eyes had never looked sadder.

“I thought it would be different with you.”

 

* * *

 

“My sister Anna died when I was seventeen. She… she committed suicide. My father, he had tried to help her, but eventually, she just… lost. I was distraught. I was angry with him; I thought he hadn’t done enough. So I ran away from home and I was taken in by a kind woman named April who found me by the dumpster behind the restaurant she worked in. Well, I thought she was kind at the time. She was ten years older than me and she…”

He stopped and sipped from the second glass of water that Meg had brought him. She feared for a moment that he would start breaking down again, but after a few deep breaths, he managed to continue:

“I was with her for three years. She got me a job, but she handled all of my money. I wasn’t allowed to have a cellphone or a computer. I… didn’t have any friends and I couldn’t contact my family. She got me thinking I owed her my life and she was the only one in the world who would care for me. She made me feel like I was nothing at times, nothing at all without her.”

“Shit,” Meg said, because there was literally nothing else that came to her mind. “Did she… what did she…?”

“It didn’t turn sexual until my eighteenth birthday. She said she wanted to wait until I was old enough,” Castiel told her and let out a bitter laugh. “Not that it made any difference in the long run.”

He fidgeted with the glass in his hands.

“I hate it,” he muttered. “I hate that she still has this hold on me, even after I escaped, even now that I’m in a better, healthier place. Sometimes I just… I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to…”

His voice trailed off. He drank again and remained in silence.

Meg didn’t know what to say to that. She watched in silence, stunned at the revelation. He had always seemed so strong, so controlled…

“That’s why you do this.” She understood, suddenly. “The shelter. You’re helping all those people… because you don’t want anyone to suffer the same way.”

“I try to do some good in the world,” he said, nodding. “I try to prove her wrong every day, that I can have a life without her and I can be… something.”

He sounded so angry. She’d seen him angry before, but not like this. Not with this sadness attached to it. She leaned over to touch his arm, but moved her hand fast when he jolted at the contact.

He raised his eyes at her. They looked darker and tired than even before.

“I’m sorry,” he said. “I really wanted to be with you tonight, Meg. I really did. I like you… I think, more than I have liked anyone in a while. But it just got so… overwhelming.”

“There’s nothing to be sorry about, Cas,” Meg said. And it was true. “I just wish you’ve told me before I put the moves on you.”

“Yes.” Castiel rubbed his eyes. “That was a huge oversight on my part. I’m really sorry I upset you.”

Meg licked her lips. There was really not much that she could say in these circumstances except, maybe…

“She was wrong.”

Castiel lifted up his eyes at her, blinking as if he hadn’t expected her to say that.

“April. She was a bitch and she was wrong,” Meg insisted. “So many people care about you, Cas. And you’re not nothing.”

There were probably more elegant ways to put that, but she couldn’t think of them right now. She felt it was a huge thing that Castiel had trusted her with that story and that he had tried to be with her despite his issues. And she didn’t quite know how to react to all of it.

She knew she didn’t want the night to end like that, though.

“Do you still want to… order the pizza and watch that movie?”

Castiel’s lips curved into a smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes. But Meg couldn’t really blame him for that.

“Yes, I’d like that.”

 

* * *

 

She didn’t know at what point of the night it happened. Somewhere between browsing the horror movies selection in Netflix and negotiating who would get the last piece of pizza, she supposed, but she couldn’t quite remember. They had taken off their shoes to be more comfortable and they had pulled out the couch so they could stretch their legs. Castiel mentioned a couple of times that he should go home. But it kept getting later and later and he just… didn’t.

Meg woke up to the “Are you still watching?” message flashing in the screen and the last slice of pizza laid cold and forgotten in the box over the coffee table. She was using Castiel’s arm as a pillow. He snored softly behind her, his body pressed against her back and his nose in her hair.

That had definitely not been what she had in mind when she had thought about sleeping with Castiel, but there they were.

She turned around very slowly, trying not to wake him, but apparently, Castiel was a very light sleeper. He opened his eyes and sat up with a jolt, blinking confusedly in the morning light. He looked adorable, with his hair tousled and his clothes wrinkled. Just so different from the calm and composed Castiel she was so used to seeing.

“I… I didn’t mean to fall asleep,” he muttered with a yawn.

Meg sat down at the edge of the couch and rubbed her eyes.

“Do you want a coffee?” she offered.

It was rather peaceful, sitting with him on the isle, the both of them still too dazed to hold a conversation. The vapor of the coffee drew spirals in the air and Meg lit up a cigarette. Castiel didn’t try to tell her to turn it off or that it was too early to be smoking.

After a long while, however, when they had downed at least half of their cups, she was the first one to speak:

“I don’t know how this is going to work, Cas.”

She had been thinking about it for a long time the night before, while they were watching people getting bloodily murdered and chomping on pizza.

Castiel nodded. It seemed that he, too, had been thinking about it.

“I should have been honest with you from the beginning. About my issues.”

“Yeah, well, it’s not like I’m baggage free either,” Meg pointed out. “But that’s just the thing, isn’t it?”

She didn’t have to say anymore. Castiel understood and nodded slowly. His eyes still weren’t shining like they had when Meg had walked in on her birthday surprise and she had to wonder, with a pang of fear, if she’d ever see them shine like that again.

“I still would like us to be friends, though,” he said. “If that’s okay with you.”

Meg didn’t know if it was okay with her. There had been a moment the night before, right when she had kissed him for the first time and before Castiel had broken down on her, when she had thought they were leaving the friends tag behind forever. And it had been such a great exhilaration, such a high to such an disastrous low…

But she couldn’t imagine what it would be like to not walk to the station with Cas again, to not share jokes and work with him every day. She didn’t think she had the strength to push him away again, after she’d had him so close.

“Yeah. We can still be friends.”

Castiel gave her a hug on the door and left after saying he would see her tomorrow. The silence in the apartment felt heavy and Meg didn’t really want to deal with it and all the thoughts running through her head.

So she took out the whiskey she kept in the cupboard and added a shot to her second coffee.


	8. August

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> CW: This chapter deals with issues of drug addiction and overdosing.

“So how did it go?”

Of course Donna would ask that at the first time they were alone on Monday.

“It went well,” Meg said, trying to keep her eyes focused on the patch of floor she was moping. “We had a good time. But, uh… I think we’re not doing it again anytime soon.”

“How come?” Donna asked, frowning at her.

Meg licked her lips. What was she supposed to say? She didn’t think Castiel would appreciate her revealing what he had told her and to be fair, she didn’t want to think too much about it either.

“Well… it was just…”

“Wrong place, wrong time?” Donna suggested.

“Yeah,” Meg said, relieved that she didn’t have to come up with an excuse anymore. “Exactly.”

“Well, that’s too bad, honey,” Donna replied, with a shrug. “But hey, there’s always next time.”

Meg wasn’t sure there would be a next time. Not with Castiel, at least. Nothing had changed: he was still walking with her to the subway station, they were still making jokes together and talking all the time. But there was certain tension that wasn’t there before. Long pauses, silences that stretched for seconds too long while either of them struggled to come up with another topic to fill it in. Sometimes she would catch Castiel looking at her like he was about to say something, but then he would look away quickly and keep on talking about animals or the news or a movie he had watched one time.

The problem was, that sort of superficial chat couldn’t cover up what was happening anymore. They both liked each other, but the moment they had attempted to move into something more, things had sort of blown up in their faces. It was painful, but it was the truth and they needed to accept that.

The problem was they couldn’t quite go back to how they were before. She didn’t regret inviting Cas over, she didn’t regret kissing him. But there were things that couldn’t simply be unsaid or undone. They had to move on.

They just hadn’t figured out how yet. And until they did, she just had to accept that things were going to be awkward and forced.

She wished she had someone to talk about it, but she hesitated to tell anything else to Donna. She knew by now that anything said in the shelter would be shared and heard by every other person who worked there.

Fortunately, for the next couple of weeks the tea time gossip didn’t revolve around Meg and Cas’ date. (Either that or the others had the decency not to mention anything about it while Meg was around). The topic of the hour was that Jo had officially started seeing the cute guy from the study group.

“He’s just really fun and cute,” Jo said, her eyes shining bright when the topic came up one evening. “I don’t know. I guess I never thought about giving him a chance before we went on that trip and Charlie suggested I spent some time alone with him.”

“I was just trying to get with his cute cousin,” Charlie said, but Meg saw that Max discreetly slid a ten dollars bill to her while Jo babbled on and on about how great her new boyfriend was. “Needed him to stop third-wheeling for a bit.”

“Does the cute guy from the study group even exist?” Meg asked, because they kept referring to him as “the cute guy from the study group” and it was getting ridiculous.

Luckily for her, she wasn’t the only one who thought about it.

“Right? You’ve been talking about this guy since the spring, and I have yet to see any photographical evidence of his existence,” Alicia said. She sounded irritated and Meg didn’t have to guess she had sunk quite a bit of money into Jo and Dean’s relationship coming to fruition.

“Oh, come on.” Jo rolled her eyes at all of them. “What, you think I made him up to make Dean jealous or some bullshit?”

“I’m just saying, if you’re really dating this dude, you shouldn’t have a problem calling him and getting him to pick you up,” Alicia replied, staring daggers into Jo.

Jo scoffed at her and immediately took her cellphone out.

“Hi, Adam,” she said when the person on the other end picked up. Jo’s eyes lit up, but Meg couldn’t be sure if it was because she was happy she was talking to this dude or if it was because she was sticking it to Alicia. “I was wondering if you can pick me up by the shelter tomorrow? We can go watch a movie or something…”

Meg told herself it was stupid and she was not as gossipy as everyone else. Actually, she thought it was of unethical and a little bit creepy to be that involved in the life of someone she only occasionally worked with. It wasn’t like Jo and Dean dating or not was going to affect her life in any meaningful way.

She was still casually helping clean the diner the following day, around the end of Jo’s shift, along with apparently every other single person in the shelter: the Winchesters, the Banes twins, Garth, Ash and even Kevin. The double doors that lead there, that were usually kept shut while they were cleaning, were wide open so everyone could have a view of the street and Ellen sitting in her desk. No one was saying a word as they all scrubbed the tables and got them ready for the lunch rush, but Meg noticed that they were all throwing looks at the street now and then.

It had to be the absolute dumbest thing ever.

Yet they all froze in their place when a guy who was maybe in his twenties, wearing a green hoodie and jeans, walked in and approached the desk.

“Uh… hi, I’m looking for Jo?” he said. “Joanna Harvelle?”

He was several heads inches than Dean and he looked younger even than Jo. He wasn’t bad looking, just… a tad bland for Meg’s taste.

Ellen slowly raised her head at him.

“Oh,” she said. “So you’re Adam.”

Meg had to pity the poor guy. She had been on the receiving end of Ellen’s glares and they could certainly be intimidating. He had a deer-in-the-headlights expression as he stepped back from the desk.

“Umh… yes, ma’am,” he said. “That would be me.”

Ellen stood up. Meg couldn’t see her face, but she could picture her with a smile that was more a display of her teeth, as if she was rearing up to rip this poor kid’s throat.

“Very nice to meet you,” she said, extending her hand towards Adam. “I’m Ellen Harvelle.”

“Oh, you’re… Jo’s mom,” Adam replied. He was so caught off-guard and nervous by Ellen that he didn’t even have time to realize there were at least half a dozen other people watching him and judging him. “It’s great to meet you, yes…”

Jo came down from upstairs, putting on her denim jacket and quickly walked towards the desk.

“Hey, Adam,” she greeted him. She grabbed her hand and pressed a quick peck to his cheek, as if she didn’t want to leave any doubt that she was dating the guy. “Okay, mom, we’re going. I’ll see you tonight.”

“Alright, sweetie, you have fun,” Ellen said. Adam and Jo headed for the door before she called them: “By the way, Adam? You’re welcome to join us for dinner tonight.”

Adam’s smile was full of nervousness.

“T-Thank you, Mrs. Harvelle,” he stammered before Jo pulled from him away towards the door.

And there it was. They had seen the elusive cute guy from the study group with their own eyes and now there was no more denying his existence.

“Goddammit,” Alicia groaned, talking out some bills from her back pocket and handing them to Garth, who was beaming at her with satisfaction.

“Sorry, dude,” Ash said, patting Dean in the back.

“Why are you saying sorry to me?” Dean asked, frowning at him. “Why do we even have the doors open? Come on, there’s a lot of shit to do around here!”

By the way he stomped outside the room, he clearly wasn’t taking it as well as he pretended to. The rest of the day, he was grumpy as all hell, replying in monosyllables whenever someone asked him a question and snapping at everything and everyone. He also responded with an “I’m fine!” growl whenever someone wanted to check on him and he kept dropping and breaking anything that he had in his hands.

He cursed out loud when he kicked a bucket in the room upstairs and spilled the water everywhere.

“Fuck, goddammit…”

Meg made the mistake of daring to talk to him.

“You’re cleaning that up, aren’t you?”

“No, you know what, Meg? I’m just going to leave it here for someone else to clean up my mess!”

“Okay, I don’t need this right now.” Meg huffed. “Just because you couldn’t get it together enough to get with the girl of your dreams, you don’t have to take it out on me!”

“Shut up!” Dean shouted at her, turning towards her so fast it was almost terrifying. “You don’t know what you’re talking about!”

Meg opened her mouth to tell him she knew exactly what she was taking about: she knew what it was like to be really into someone, to see them every day and laugh and talk with them and get her hopes up only for it not to work out the way she wanted to in the end. She knew it and she was also aching, but she wasn’t screaming at people and being an ass, she was doing her damn job and keeping it all together somehow, so if she could manage it, so could he.

Sam came running to stand in the middle of the two before she could say any of that.

“Okay, calm down time!” he said. “Dean, come on. You need to relax, man.”

Dean scoffed and growled again and walked out of the room, leaving the pool of water on the floor that he had spilled unattended. Sam took a deep breath, but he said nothing as he went to pick his own mop.

“You don’t have to do that, Sam,” Meg told him. “Let him come back and deal with it.”

“I’m just gonna…” Sam started saying, but in the end, he sat down on one of the beds and pinched his nose. He looked really tired all of the sudden and for some reason it made Meg’s imperious need to mock his brother decrease.

“Hey. It’s not your fault he’s throwing a tantrum right now,” she told him, sitting down next to him.

“I know. I know it’s not,” Sam replied. “But it’s still stressing me out. I can’t help thinking…”

He stopped himself and shook his head.

“What?” Meg encouraged him and immediately remembered that she had no right to ask that. She wasn’t friends with Sam. They were people who worked together in the same place and yeah, sometimes they talked a little more than she did with the rest of the people in the shelter, except perhaps Castiel and Donna. But they weren’t by any means friends and she had no right to inquire about anything that was going through his mind.

Sam decided to answer her anyway for some reason.

“I can’t help thinking he would’ve asked Jo out if it wasn’t for me.”

“That’s stupid. Dean let that ship sail, not you.”

“I know.” Sam sighed. “It’s just… doesn’t matter.” He shook his head. “I guess I’ll have something to talk about tonight at the meeting.”

The admission surprised her slightly. Sam made no secret of his struggles, but he still seemed like one of the most collected people in the shelter, so she often forgot. She shouldn’t be that baffled, though: if Donna could be an addict, she supposed anybody else could.

“Yeah, how does that work?” she asked him. “You go to that place and say _‘Hi, I’m Sam and I’m addicted to feeling guilty for things that aren’t my fault’_ and all the other junkies go: _‘Yeah, bravo!_ ’” She mimicked an applause.

At least it got Sam to crack a smile.

“Do you want to go to one?” he offered.

“Who, me? Nah.” Meg shook her head. “What would I even do there?”

“You don’t have to talk about anything.” Sam shrugged. “You can just sit down. Listen. You only have to share if you feel like it.”

It was an honest suggestion. Meg knew this perfectly well: he wasn’t trying to preach to her or t o get her to change. He honestly thought that was something that could be good for Meg.

She couldn’t bring herself to be snarky about that.

“Yeah.” She clicked her tongue. “I don’t really think that’s my scene, Sam.”

“Okay.” Sam nodded. He stood up and pulled from the helm of his shirt. “You’ve done a lot of progress, Meg.”

“What?”

“A couple of months ago, when I invited you, you mocked me and refused to even consider you needed it.” He shrugged. “It’s okay if you’re not ready yet. We all get there on our own time. Just know that there are people who will support you when you need it.”

“Woah, Sam.” Meg rolled her eyes. “That’s really nice. I’m gonna cry out all the alcohol in my system and lead a life of cleanliness and sobriety from now on.”

“You do that,” Sam said, with a chuckle and picked up his mop back up. Meg stared at his back for a moment and opened her mouth.

She wanted to tell him that she wasn’t sure that going to the meetings would help. She wasn’t sure that anything would help. She had resigned herself to the fact she would be a barely functional alcoholic for however long (or short) she had to live. But she appreciated Sam’s intention anyway. She appreciated that he cared, even though he didn’t have to.

Dean walked inside right at that moment. He looked a lot calmer than he had been before.

“Sorry I snapped on you,” he muttered, and without another word, he got to cleaning the pool of water that he had spilled.

Sam breathed out in relief and continued cleaning without another word. Meg figured she should follow suit.

 

* * *

 

The last week of August found her feeling strangely at peace. Dinner was over and Meg had finished doing her part of the dishes. Missouri had just placed the kettle over the stove. Patience and Claire were arguing out loud over which girl in Pretty Little Liars was prettier somewhere to their left, while Charlie, Kevin, Alexis and the Banes shuffled the cards and got ready to wait out the end of their shift. Most of the volunteers had already left, including the Winchesters, the Harvelles and Doinna.

“Want some tea?” Missouri offered.

Meg looked at the time in her cellphone. Castiel had told her he would be a little late that night, so Meg saw no problem with accepting. She leaned back against the counter and wondered when the hell she had got used to this being her normalcy.

“Are you feeling okay?” Missouri asked her all of the sudden.

Meg blinked, distracted from her feelings and looked at her with confusion. Missouri usually barked orders around and expected people to follow them. The touchy-feeling conversation was more of Donna’s territory.

“I actually feel well, thank you.”

“What about your family?” Missouri asked. “Are they alright?”

Meg shrugged. She had talked to Lilith a couple of days ago and save for her preaching about how Meg really needed to start thinking about what she was going to do the following year, everything had been business as usual.

“They seem to be doing fine. Why?”

“There’s a black cloud hanging about you,” Missouri said. “I don’t like it.”

Meg stared at her, not entirely sure whether Missouri was begin serious or not.

“Of course there’s a black cloud hanging about me. It’s my untreated depression,” she told her, trying to sound light.

Missouri didn’t laugh at her joke.

“You better watch out for the next couple of days, girl. I’d be sorry if anything happened to you. I’m starting to like you.”

She finished her scalding tea in one gulp and walked away, leaving Meg completely puzzled.

“Did she just threaten me?” she asked out loud to no one in particular.

“No, that would be Gram’s sixth sense acting up,” Patience explained. “She does that sometimes.”

“Sixth sense, like… she sees dead people or something?”

“According to her.” Patience shrugged. “Don’t worry too much about it. You’re not going to die.” She squinted her eyes at her. “Well, hopefully.”

“Gee, thanks.” Meg also finished her tea and decided to go look for Castiel. Not because of what Missouri had said. She just… had a strong urge to see him all of the sudden. “Goodnight to you too.”

She picked up her leather jacket from the hanger and headed for the lobby…

“Sorry, we don’t accept anyone after nine o’clock.”

“It’s five past nine! You can’t turn me down like that! Come on, man, I have nowhere else to go.”

The voice made Meg stop on her tracks. It couldn’t be. Why would she be there? It didn’t make any sense.

But as soon as she crossed the doors, she saw Ruby there, arguing with Gordon out loud.

“I can’t make any exceptions. Sorry, honey.”

Ruby stomped her feet, like a kid who have been denied her favorite desert. She then changed tactics: she put on a smile and slid closer to the desk with a big mischievous smile.

“Okay, well, you can’t let me stay here, but what time do you get off?” She put her hand over Gordon’s, who stared at her with a blank expression.

“Seven in the morning,” he said, calmly. “Also, no offense, but you’re not my type.”

“You haven’t tried me yet,” Ruby replied, with a wink.

That was more than Meg could stand. She stepped out on the lobby.

“Ruby, what are you doing?”

Ruby’s first reaction was stepping backwards and looking around as if she was looking for an exit. Realizing the only way she could avoid that encounter was if she turned around and fled the shelter, she decided to stand her ground.

“Meg! Hi!” she greeted her cheerful, as if there was nothing out of the ordinary with this encounter. “Gosh, it’s been months! I didn’t know you worked here, I just…”

“What are you doing?” Meg repeated, tired of her avoiding the issue. “Did Abaddon kick you out again?”

Ruby scoffed and scratched her arm. Meg pretended she didn’t notice the needle marks on the inside of her elbow. They were more noticeable than they had been the last time she saw her, or maybe it was because Ruby was wearing a tank top now. And she was thinner, much thinner than back in the spring. Despite how mad at her she knew she was supposed to be, Meg couldn’t help but to wonder if she had been eating properly.

“No, she didn’t kick me out. I left her.”

Meg wasn’t sure whether to believe her or not, she opened her mouth but Ruby started talking very fast:

“Listen, I know you’re probably mad at me and you have every right to be, but could you tell your friend to just let me stay here? Please?” She raised her dark eyes, shimmering with tears. “I have no right to ask you this, I know. But I have nowhere else to go…”

“They have a strict no drugs or alcohol rule here,” Meg informed, flatly.

Ruby immediately held her black duffle bag close to her chest. Because of course she did. After a second, she seemed to have realized what she was doing, because she straightened her shoulders and cleared her throat.

“That’s fine.”

“I’m gonna check everywhere to see if you’re bringing anything in here,” Gordon warned her.

“Come on, that has to be unconstitutional!” Ruby complained.

“Ruby…” Meg started. Castiel came out of his office right at that moment and stared at the three of them with his usual scowl.

“Is there a problem?”

Meg hesitated. She could tell him that no, there was no problem whatsoever and leave with him. She could let Ruby deal with Gordon or choose the street if her goddamn stash was more important to her than it was having a warm bed and a roof over her head. She should do that. After what Ruby had pulled the last time? She probably deserved it. She needed to learn that she just couldn’t keep screwing people over and expect them to take her back afterwards.

But she looked so fragile standing there, looking down at her feet and scratching her arm again…

“Wait here. Gordon, make sure she waits here,” Meg said. “Cas, can I talk to you in your office?”

Castiel listened to her dilemma patiently. She thought she saw him flinch a little bit when she mentioned that Ruby was her ex, but other than that, he maintained a very calm demeanor, like every time that he was faced with a problem.

“What do you want to do?” Castiel asked. “If we let her stay here, she has to abide by the rules.”

“I know.”

“But if you take her home with you, you’re afraid she will steal from you again,” he guessed.

“Essentially.” Meg sighed. “But, I… I can’t just let her out on the street, Cas.”

Castiel nodded. He had all the right to tell her she was being stupid and that of course Ruby wasn’t going to change and she shouldn’t feel sorry for her. But if he’d said that, if he had put Meg’s own anger into words, she would’ve known he wasn’t the man she took him for.

“You can’t let her in your home either. If she has illegal substances as you suspect, you’d be breaking the terms of your parole. You could get in a world of trouble, Meg.”

Meg tapped her fingers against the side of her leg, thinking.

“What if I take her, but not the drugs?” she suggested.

“How would we do that?”

“You’re the only one who has a key to this office, right?” she said, and immediately cringed at what she was suggesting. If she didn’t think Ruby should expect the world to coddle her, then Meg didn’t have any right to expect something similar from Castiel. “No, forget it. It’s a bad idea.”

“It is a terrible idea,” he agreed. He licked his lips and took a deep breath. “But I can’t think of any better.”

Despite Meg’s request for Ruby to stay, she had slowly inched towards the door and she was fidgeting with her bag, as if she was planning to escape as she came back. Gordon had his feet up on his desk and pretended to read a fishing magazine, while still eyeing Ruby over the edge of the page. He put it down as soon Castiel and Meg exited the office.

“So what’s it gonna be, boss?”

“We don’t take anyone past nine,” Castiel repeated. Ruby opened her mouth to protest, but Castiel put his hand up to stop her. “Meg, however, has agreed to let you stay at her home.”

“Really?” Ruby glanced at Meg and a slow smile appeared on her face. “I knew you wouldn’t let me down, Meg…”

“Provided you leave your things here to be picked up in the morning.”

Ruby’s face immediately fell. She grabbed her bag closer, as if she was afraid someone was going to wrestle it away from her.

“I can’t do that,” she said. “What if somebody steals it?”

“It’ll be locked away and Gordon, here, will keep an eye on the door. You have nothing to worry about,” Castiel assured her.

Ruby let out a scoff and looked at Meg, as if she expected her to speak out in her favor. Meg said absolutely nothing, so Ruby changed tactics.

“I have my clothes here…”

“I can lend you some clothes,” Meg said. “Ruby, come on. Work with us here.”

Ruby still didn’t look convinced, but it seemed to be dawning on her that this was going to be the only way she’ll have somewhere to sleep that night. Reluctantly, she pulled her bag from her shoulder and extended it towards Castiel. He grabbed it and disappeared inside his office for a second. Meg imagined he was placing the bag somewhere where it couldn’t be easily seen, even as Ruby stood on the tip of her toes and tried to spy inside. Castiel came back, locked the door and place the key inside his jacket pocket.

“Very well. We’re ready to go now.”

“He’s coming with us?” Ruby asked, frowning. “What, is he your new boyfriend or something?”

Castiel glared at her silently and turned to Gordon to say goodnight to him.

“Let’s just go, Ruby,” Meg muttered.

Ruby cast a suspicious glance in Castiel’s direction when he followed them down the street, but she turned her attention back to Meg quickly.

“Hey, I really appreciate this. I know deserve it after how I behaved the last time…”

“Don’t mention it,” Meg replied.

“… I’ll pay you back, okay?” Ruby insisted. “To the last cent. I’m starting a new business…”

Castiel stepped between the two of them.

“I hope you don’t expect Meg to be involved in this business of yours,” he said, his blue eyes piercing right through Ruby. “She’s trying to rebuild her life and the last thing she needs is another… problematic friend.”

“Cas…” Meg started protesting, because she appreciated Castiel’s intention, she really did. But she was too tired to get confrontational with Ruby and she could speak for herself anyway.

Ruby didn’t give her time to say anything else, though. She stepped in front of them, preventing them from moving forwards and raised her chin up to Castiel.

“You think you know Meg better than I do, handsome?”

“I think I know Meg enough to realize when someone is taking advantage of her loyalty,” Castiel argued.

“Oh, you don’t know half of it, do you?” Ruby laughed. It came out like a strange, out of tune sound that made Meg shiver despite the warm night above their heads. “I never asked Meg to do any of this! She _chose_ to help me.”

“Stop,” Meg growled, but both of them ignored her.

“She took the fall for the accident because she _cares_ about me,” Ruby continued. “Do you think she’ll ever do anything like that for you?”

Castiel was at a loss for what to say for a moment.

“What do you mean?”

“You didn’t tell him?” Ruby asked, arching an eyebrow on Meg’s direction.

Meg groaned to herself. If it was up to her, she would’ve preferred not to have to remember that cold night in November when all this bullshit had started.

“It’s none of his business,” Meg replied. The cold anger she had felt upon seeing Ruby again was starting to boil over, but she managed to keep her voice low and calm: “It’s not anybody’s business and I’m not going to stand here arguing with you two. Let’s go.”

She walked past them towards the subway station without looking over her shoulder to see if they were following her. They caught up with her near the turnstiles and of course Ruby asked her to pay for the fee, because she had no money on her. Of course she did.

They sat in silence waiting for the train to arrive. Castiel didn’t even look at her or try to bring up any random animal facts. He simply muttered goodnight when their train arrive and didn’t try to walk them to the door as he did every other night.

“My God, that guy’s a piece of work,” Ruby commented when they were inside. “Does the stick in his ass ever come off or is too far up in there for him to even sit?”

She laughed, but Meg didn’t react to the joke. Ruby seemed to realize that she wasn’t getting through Meg so she tried another angle:

“You really didn’t tell anybody?”

Meg didn’t feel like answering to that either, so Ruby gave up until they were already climbing the stairs to Meg’s apartment.

“Meg, come on. Don’t be mad at me,” she begged as Meg opened the door and let her inside. “I was just taking the piss out of him because he was puffing his chest and being all territorial around my girl…”

She stretched her arms towards her, but Meg stepped out of her reach before Ruby could touch her.

“I’m not your girl,” she snapped. “And if I didn’t tell anyone about what really happened, it’s because I didn’t want anybody to know, alright?”

That got Ruby to be quiet, at least for a moment. Meg ran her fingers through her hair, breathing in slowly to try and calm down.

“Okay,” she muttered. “Sorry.”

Meg stared at her as Ruby scratched her arm again. It seemed to be a tic she wasn’t even aware of.

“But I meant what I said, okay? I’m gonna pay you back. And I’m gonna put my life back in order,” she assured Meg. “You’ll see. We can even go to that trip of the Grand Canyon that we talked about…”

“That’s great, Ruby,” Meg interrupted her. She was honestly starting to have a headache and all that she wanted to do was have a drink and go to bed. But she remembered what had happened the last time she’d got drunk around Ruby. “You can take the bed. I’ll sleep on the couch.”

“You’re afraid I’m gonna steal your TV and pawn it while you’re sleeping?” Ruby tried to joke.

Meg didn’t find the humor in it. She turned around to disappear inside the bathroom, but Ruby grabbed her hand and pulled her close before she could take two steps.

“Listen. I know I don’t appreciate enough everything you’ve done for me,” she said. “I know I’ve been a shitty friend and an even shittier girlfriend. But this time with Abaddon, all the fighting and the drama… it made me realize…”

Meg put a hand on her shoulder and softly pushed her away before Ruby could get any closer or say another word.

“I can’t do this tonight, Rubes,” she cut her off softly. “I just can’t.”

Ruby didn’t move right away. For a moment, Meg thought she was going to keep insisting that they were right for each other and try to lure her into bed with her, and how she was really going to blow off if that happened. Nothing she did for her was about sex. It wasn’t about what Ruby could do for her: get her a date with a hot guy or be her drinking buddy or her partner in crime. It was about Ruby and how Meg had been crazy for her once upon a time.

But looking at her now, it was different. Ruby looked so desperate and so alone and she was in such denial of the trouble she was in that Meg couldn’t help but to… pity her, in a way.

She wondered if the people at the shelter looked at her and saw her the same way she was looking at Ruby now.

It was a grim thought.

Finally, Ruby stepped away, letting her go.

“Okay. We’ll talk in the morning, then.”

She disappeared inside Meg’s bedroom, intentionally leaving the door slightly ajar behind her, as if she was tempting Meg to follow her.

Instead of doing that, Meg fished her whiskey from inside her cabinet and took one long swig.

 

* * *

 

Ruby woke her up at a criminally early hour, but she had the decency of doing it with coffee.

“Do you think the shelter’s open already?” she asked her, while Meg slowly sat up on the couch and took small sips from the mug that Ruby had placed in her hand. “I need to pick up my bag.”

She was nervous again, walking around the house and scratching her arm. She didn’t seem to be going into withdrawal, which made Meg wonder if she had helped herself to her dwindling reserves of sleeping pills. At least, she hadn’t stolen and pawned the TV.

Meg rubbed her eyes and tried to focus her thoughts.

“And what are you going to do afterwards?”

Ruby tapped her fingers in her mug.

“Look, I know you don’t like him, but Lucifer offered me to work with him…”

“You know what, I changed my mind,” Meg interrupted her. “I don’t want to know.” She chugged down the rest of the coffee and stood up. “Let’s just go get your stuff.”

The ride in the subway train was silent and awkward. There were a lot people going to work or school, so they had to stand close to one another in order to not be separated from the crowd. Meg checked her phone and refused to look at Ruby.

She had a message from Castiel asking her if she was okay.

That managed to put a smile in her face despite everything else.

“Meg.”

Meg looked up from the screen. Ruby was giving her once more that intense look that seemed to say a million different things at the same time.

“It's okay if you don’t believe me right now. But next time I come back, it’ll be much better.”

Meg could have warned her against promises she couldn’t keep, but instead she muttered that they had arrived to their stop.

Ellen narrowed her eyes at them as soon as they walked in.

“Did you fall out of bed?” she asked her.

“Sort of,” Meg admitted, with a yawn. “Is Cas in? He has some things that belong to my friend.”

“He should be here any minute. Why don’t you girls go to the kitchen and start helping out? Missouri always needs extra hands for breakfast.”

Meg was going to ask if she could have another coffee before that when Ruby’s shout distracted her:

“Holy shit! Sam?”

Sam had stopped on his track right on the door, wide-eyed and seemingly terrified, like a deer caught in the headlights.

“For real? Does everyone I know work in this dumpster?” Ruby threw her back and laugh, extending her arms as if she expected Sam to greet her with a hug. “How you’ve been? I haven’t seen you in ages!”

Sam snapped out of whatever trance he was in and breathing in deeply.

“Ruby. Hi.”

When it became obvious that he wouldn’t hug her, Ruby punched him gently in the biceps.

“Small world, huh? I didn’t expect to see you _or_ Meg here. But hey, maybe I can stick around for a while and we can catch up!”

“Uh, yeah. Maybe,” Sam muttered and turned to his brother. “Let’s just… let’s just see if Missouri needs us.”

So that was weird and awkward and Meg was wishing more and more that Ruby would get out of there. She didn’t need to ask how she knew Sam, but she was a little surprised nonetheless. Ruby had always dealt with stuff harder than a simple blunt or some funny pills. How did she…?

Cas crossed the door at that moment, saving her from having to think about it any further.

“You’re here early,” he commented, narrowing his eyes at her.

“Is that really so shocking?”

“I just thought you had some sort of policy against being up before lunch,” Castiel commented while he opened the door. “It’s the reason you had me change your shifts.”

“Yeah, well.” Meg chuckled. “What’s so great about mornings anyway?”

As usual, his mere presence, their banter, had managed to make her day a little brighter.

Ruby wasn’t happy. It was obvious in her tight-lipped smile as she hanged her bag over her shoulder, in the way her eyes were darkened when she stretched her arms towards Meg.

“Come on, one hug,” she insisted.

Meg sighed and stepped forwards. Ruby held her too tight and for a little too long and she could imagine she was grinning at Castiel over her shoulder. When she let go, Meg stepped away quickly.

“Goodbye, Ruby.”

Ruby opened her mouth as if she was going to say something else, but at the last second, she decided not to. She just spun on her heels and exited Castiel’s office.

Meg breathed out in relief. Maybe Missouri had been right and the black cloud hanging over her was just Ruby. Now she was gone and she could turn around and meet Castiel’s eyes, like a limpid sky, boring into her while he touched her shoulder.

“Are you alright?”

“Yeah, just fine.” Meg beamed at him.

“I’m glad.”

They stared at each other in silence for a second until Castiel licked his lips and cleared his throat.

“You can go home, sleep and come back for your shift, if you want.”

“Ah… what the hell, I’m here already. I still owe you a double shift.”

“Are you sure? If it’s too much for you to handle…”

“I’m fine, Cas,” Meg promised him. “You don’t have to worry about me.”

“What if I’d like to worry about you anyway?”

Meg’s thoughts scattered and she stood in silence for a second, scrambling to find a comeback to that. Ultimately, she cleared her throat and laughed awkwardly.

“Yeah. I mean, I guess you can do that. I’m gonna… yeah.”

She bumped on the chair on her way to the door and had to assure Castiel she was okay again before she left the office. Not her most gracious moment, for sure.

But she really couldn’t bring herself to care much about that.

Castiel worried about her. He was still thinking of her. Despite the way their date had ended, despite him knowing what a mess she was.

She never did get around to make that origami penguin for him. That was something she could work on when she came back home that night.

Missouri eyed her when she came back into the kitchen, but if she saw another black cloud over her, she didn’t comment on it. It was the last day of the month, which meant she was busy doing an inventory and discarding the expired food. The kitchen was a mess of cans and jars covering every inch of the counters. Missouri was writing down all the things she was throwing away in a small notepad.

“Can you go take those trash bags out?” she asked Meg. “I sent Sam out with a couple, but he seems to have lost his way back.”

Meg picked them up without another word and stepped into the alleyway, thinking maybe she’d had time to smoke a cigarette and join Sam in whatever he was doing…

“… Sam, please. People don’t really change.”

Meg was paralyzed once more. This time, however, her shock came with a side of indignation and surprise.

Ruby and Sam were on the end of the alleyway. Sam had pressed his back against the wall, as if he was trying to get as far away from Ruby as it was physically possible while she held and shook a small plastic bag with a white powder inside in his face.

“Tell you what. I’m gonna give you a free sample. For old time’s sake. And if you want more, you can always call me up…”

“What the fuck, Ruby?”

Meg dropped the trash bags and marched down the alley, seeing red. Without another word, she pushed Ruby away from Sam. Her ex let out a gasp of surprised. The plastic bag slipped from her grasp.

“Hey!” she exclaimed, indignantly.

“Get out of here!” Meg shouted at her. “Take that shit away!”

Ruby stared at her wide-eyed, her jaw slacked. As if she couldn’t believe Meg would be angry about this.

“Oh, come on, Meg!” she exclaimed. “I’m just trying to make a living!”

“By being Lucifer’s dealer?” Meg scoffed with disgust. “You’re not doing that here, okay? This place has enough problems as it is without you plaguing it as well!”

“Plague?” Ruby repeated and let out a bitter laugh. “Is that what you really think about me? Well, guess what, princess. You’re a big fucking hypocrite! You always act so high and mighty about what I do as if you weren’t a useless drunk too!”

The words cut deeper than Meg let show. She squared her shoulders and stared at Ruby in the eyes.

“Maybe,” she agreed. “But at least I have the decency not to drag people down with me!”

Ruby opened her mouth, but Meg didn’t let her continue. She turned her back on her, but Ruby wasn’t going to quit that easily.

“Meg,” she called. “Meg, wait. I didn’t mean…”

Meg swatted away the hand Ruby put in her shoulder and glared at her until she backed away.

“I don’t want to see you again,” Meg told her, lowering her voice so Ruby would know she wasn’t speaking out of anger. She was furious, but this was a decision that had been a long time coming. “Lose my number, you hear me?”

She closed the door behind her and took a second to breathe deeply, waiting for her heart to stop racing. In the heat of the confrontation, she hadn’t noticed when Sam had walked back inside, but she felt like she owed him an apology…

He was nowhere to be seen in the kitchen.

“Where’s Sam?” she asked Missouri, the rage she had felt replaced by a cold, sweaty panic that settled in the pit of her stomach.

“He said he needed to use the bathroom,” Missouri informed her. “Why…?”

Meg flew past her without answering. Had Sam picked up the little bag that Ruby had offered him? She hadn’t seen it, but what if it did? What did it have? Why did Sam…?

She found him in the men’s bathroom, standing right outside one of the stalls. He had picked up Ruby’s “free sample”, and he was looking at it with his jaw clenched tight. Everything about his posture was tense, as if he was ready to fight someone. Except the person he was fighting, Meg suspected, was himself.

“Sam,” she called him.

Sam snapped out of whatever thoughts he was having. Without looking at her, he stepped inside the stall. Meg followed him just in time to see how he emptied the bag right into the toilet and flushed down the white powder without a second of hesitation.

But as soon as it was all gone, he leaned against the stall, breathing heavily.

“Sam, are you okay?” Meg asked him. “Do you need me to call someone…?”

“No,” Sam cut her off. He stood up, ran his fingers through his hair and breathed in deeply again. “No, I’m fine.”

“I’m sorry…”

“It wasn’t your fault,” Sam replied. He moved towards the sinks and threw some water on his face, shaking his head for a moment. He looked less pale and more decided when he turned to her again. “Please, don’t tell Dean about this.”

Meg wanted to protest. She wanted to tell him that if it had affected him so badly, he needed to talk to someone. She wanted to apologize again for being the reason Ruby was there in the first place. But one look at him made her realize that wasn’t what Sam needed to hear right now.

“I won’t,” she promised simply.

 

* * *

 

Meg watched Sam closely for the rest of the day, even roping Donna into trading places with Dean when they showed up later so she could work with Sam. For a while, he was taciturn and silent, but after a few hours, he started talking normally and joking around with everyone else when Adam came to pick up Jo late in the evening. Meg finally had to assume she probably wasn’t the person he wanted to talk with about what’d happened.

Dean didn’t seem to notice anything was wrong with his brother. He brooded a little after Jo and Adam left, but other than that, he acted the same as always.

“How about we order a pizza for dinner and we go crazy with the toppings?” he proposed. “We can watch _Sudden Impact_. It’ll be fun.”

“We’ve watched _Sudden Impact_ a million times already,” Sam replied, rolling his eyes. “Besides… I was thinking of going to a meeting tonight.”

That got Dean to raise his eyes at him. But whatever question he wanted to ask, in the end he chose not to.

“Okay,” he said simply.

Meg witnessed the whole exchange while she stood around in the lobby, palming down her pockets. She couldn’t seem to find her keys. They weren’t in her jacket, nor in her jeans. She had her wallet, she had her cellphone, she had some loose change, but her keys where nowhere to be found. That was odd. She usually left them in her jacket and she hadn’t taken it anywhere; just left it in the coat hanger as she did every day…

“Is everything okay?” Castiel asked when he came out of his office.

“I seem to have…” Meg started, and then a sudden realization dawned on her. She was wearing the jacket when Ruby had hugged her goodbye. “Oh, she didn’t.”

“What’s the problem?”

“I think Ruby might have taken my keys.”

Castiel, Sam and Dean looked at her in stunned silence for a moment before they sprang into action.

“If she did, you need to call the police,” Castiel suggested.

“I can open your door for you,” Dean offered. “I used to work as a locksmith.”

Sam glanced in her direction in silence for a second or two.

“We can come with you.”

“You don’t have to do that,” Meg said, immediately. She didn’t mean “you”, in general. She meant Sam in particular, and she was certain that Sam knew about it.

But even as Castiel and Dean protested that it was no trouble, that they wanted to help her, Sam held her gaze and spoke firmly:

“Let us come with you.”

Meg couldn’t imagine what would be at the other side of the door when they opened it. She figured her TV and all of her alcohol would be gone, along with any money and jewelry and anything else Ruby could stuff her pockets with and sell away quickly. She was already picturing the call she would have to make to her mother, because she was the only other person who a key to her apartment and she was not going to be happy to hear what had happened…

Castiel’s hand came to rest in her forearm, and as usual, her thoughts immediately calmed down when he touched her.

“It’s going to be alright, Meg,” he promised her. “If you don’t want to spend the night here, you can come to my place.

Meg arched an eyebrow to him and Castiel’s cheeks immediately started burning.

“What I meant is… I have a guest’s room where you can…”

“Yeah, I know what you meant.” Meg chuckled and placed her hand over his. His skin was always so warm and soft… “Thank you.”

The door clicked and Dean stood up, smiling with satisfaction.

“Piece of cake,” he said.

Lisa Braeden, who lived across the hallway, opened her door and peered outside.

“Is everything alright?” she asked, glancing with a frown at the three burly men and Meg that were standing outside her apartment.

“Yeah, Lisa. Thanks.”

“Lisa, huh?” Dean turned around and smiled wide at her. “We’re just helping Meg out. You friends with her?”

They weren’t. Meg didn’t have a lot of relationship with any of her neighbors, other than a casual greeting when she passed them by on the hall or the stairs. Now, Meg was regretting that, thinking she should have become friends with Lisa and asked her to keep a spare key.

Then again, if she had, she would have been alone when she stepped inside her apartment. And she didn’t know if she’d been able to handle that.

The lights were on and Ruby was sprawled on the couch with her eyes closed. Had she come back there to have a nap or to wait for her so they could talk? She had another thing coming if that was the case.

“Ruby, goddammit,” Meg muttered, walking up to her. “Wake up…”

She stepped on something that cracked and shattered under her sole. The hairs in the back of her head stood up even before she looked down and realized it was a syringe, before she even noticed the strong, bitter scent of vinegar floating in the air, before she reached to touch Ruby’s face and found that her skin was cold and clammy.

But her mind refused to accept the truth.

“Ruby?” she called out. “Ruby!”

She grabbed her by the shoulders and shook her. Ruby’s body flailed around with no resisting, her eyes still closed and she was cold, so cold…

Castiel grabbed her by the arm and pulled her back while Meg kept shouting Ruby’s name. Someone shouted to call 911, but Meg wasn’t paying attention anymore. All she could do was turn around, bury her face in Castiel’s chest to muffle her screams.


	9. September

The lights blinked red and blue above her head.

Despite the warm night, Meg was trembling with Castiel’s jacket draped over her shoulders. He sat right next to her on the sidewalk, holding her close and rubbing her arm up and down, assuring her over and over that it was okay. That it’d be okay.

Meg wasn’t sure she believed him. Despite all his good intentions, despite how many times he had proven to be honest and kind, she just wasn’t sure she could believe him this time.

The police and paramedics had ordered them to come out of the building and they had complied, along with Lisa and every other single resident of the building, who were now standing on the street, whispering among themselves or watching the whole spectacle through the windows.

The paramedics walked right past them. The gurney was covered in a plastic bag but Meg could imagine perfectly what was underneath it: Ruby, pale and cold, her eyes close as if she was merely sleep…

Meg snuggled closer to Castiel and he held her tight. She couldn’t cry anymore, even though it felt like she had been doing that non-stop for the last couple of hours. Now, she felt exhausted, as if she had gone weeks without sleeping. The lights of the ambulance were giving her a headache and they wouldn’t stop blinking: red, blue, red, blue, red…

“Megan Masters?” a deep voice growled above her.

Meg raised her eyes. There was a black man in a suit standing near her. He flashed a police badge at her.

“I’m Detective Victor Henriksen. You need to come with me to the station.”

“Why?” Castiel asked. His grip around Meg’s shoulders grew tighter, as if he wanted to protect her from the detective taking her away.

“We have some questions we’d like to ask her…”

“You can ask them here,” Castiel insisted.

“What seems to be the problem here, detective?”

Meg didn’t know where Sam, Dean and Lisa had been standing, but they all approached Detective Henriksen at the same time. Sam was puffing his chest and holding his head high, as if that would get Detective Henriksen to back away.

It didn’t.

“The problem, young man, is that there was a body found in your friend’s apartment,” he informed Sam, coldly. “Along with a significant amount of illegal substances. Now, Miss Masters is already under probation involving a DUI, as I’m sure you’re aware, so we need to take her in for interrogation to find out what has happened here.”

“Why? Is she a suspect?”

“That’s for me to determine. For now, we have some questions that need answers…”

“Sam.” Meg’s voice came broken and weak, but it still managed to shut up both men. “It’s okay.”

She stood up with Castiel’s help. She felt a little dizzy, but it was a good thing that she managed not to vomit on Detective Henriksen’s shoes. She wasn’t sure that would’ve helped her situation at all. She shrugged off Castiel’s jacket and handed it back to him.

“Meg, are you sure you’re okay?” Castiel asked her. “Do you need us to call anybody?”

Meg shook her head. The lawyer that had handled her case last year was one of Crowley’s pals and a complete jerk. And she didn’t need her mother and stepfather involved in this right now.

“Let’s just get it over with,” she mumbled.

Detective Henriksen guided her to where two uniformed policemen awaited. One of them dangled the handcuffs in front of her.

“Really?” Meg asked, tiredly.

“Standard procedure,” Detective Henriksen said.

Meg huffed but put her hands up. One policeman handcuffed them behind her back while the other patted her up and down, as if there was anywhere she could be hiding a weapon of some sort. Meg had the feeling his hands lingered too long around her ass, but she was too exhausted to complain.

One car ride and twenty minutes later, she was alone in an interrogation room, completely bare except for two plastic chairs and a table. Meg didn’t know how long she was supposed to wait, so she sat down and buried her face in her arms.

She couldn’t fall asleep. She wanted to, more than anything in the world. She wanted this fucking night to end already, but every time she closed her eyes, all she could see was Ruby’s face, her pale lips, her eyes that weren’t opening no matter how much Meg called her name or shook her…

She thought she was done crying, but there, alone, with nothing to distract her from the memories, she broke down again. She wanted to be back home. No, goddammit, she couldn’t go home, not now when every time she walked in she was going to picture Ruby’s body on her couch. She wanted to be with Cas again, letting him hug her and tell her that it’d be alright, even though they both new that wasn’t true. She wanted to go back to the afternoon before in the alley, where she’d told Ruby to lose her number…

She didn’t know. She couldn’t have known that Ruby would do something like that. How was she supposed to know? She’d just thought that Ruby was going through one of her selfish stages once more. She couldn’t have imagined… but it was her fault. If she’d tried a little harder, if she’d been less judgmental, if…

The bang of the door startled her and she looked up. Detective Henriksen had just walked in, holding a cup of coffee. He didn’t offer her one. Instead, he dropped a file in front of Meg and moved the other chair to sit down in front of her.

“Well, Miss Masters, I called your probation officer. He wasn’t happy to hear about all this,” he commented. He calmly took a sip of his coffee. “He thought you were doing, and I quote, ‘so well’.”

Meg said nothing to that. If only because she had to take too many shivering breaths to try and calm the tears that were still flowing from her face.

“It doesn’t look good, Meg. Can I call you Meg?” he continued. He opened the file without waiting for an answer from her. “You were charged back in October of last year for driving under the influence, public property destruction, disorderly conduct and resisting arrest. A nasty business.”

He extracted a picture and slid it across the table towards her. It showed her brother’s car, the front of it destroyed and the lamppost it had crashed against bent down until it almost touched the street. Henriksen placed another picture next to it: it was Meg’s mug shot, that showed her pale and with her eyes red and puffy, dried blood in her hair and a nasty cut across her forehead. Meg didn’t remember it having it taken, but then again, she barely remembered anything from the days that followed the crash. That was the funny thing about concussions.

“Your Halloween partying got out of control and you destroyed your brother’s car and the city’s property, huh?” Henriksen continued.

Meg just stared back at him. She didn’t know what she was supposed to say to that. She already knew what had happened, better than Henriksen did, better than anyone.

The one other person who had been there was Ruby and now she was…

“Crying because you got in trouble again?” Henriksen asked coldly.

That managed to infuriate Meg.

“I’m crying because my best friend is dead, you ass!” she snapped at him. “Did you bring me here to talk about that or just to babble on forever?”

Henriksen leaned back on the chair, a little smirk on his lips. He seemed happy he’d managed to elicit a reaction out of her finally.

“You have any idea how lucky you are?” he asked her, his voice dropping threateningly. “You only got from this mess with minor injuries and a slap on the wrist.” He pointed a finger at the picture of the crash and then another at Meg. “You could've had somebody killed. You could have killed yourself. And when they give you a second chance, you use it to do and deal heroin…”

“What?” Meg asked. The fury and the grief all froze inside of her, replaced with something much, much worse: fear. She had thought Henriksen wanted to talk about Ruby’s death, to figure out what’d happened…

“You’re not going to get away with a slap on the wrist this time. Now, you better start telling me…”

The door burst opened and a blonde woman in a very elegant grey pencil skirt and jacket marched in.

“That’s enough, detective,” she said coldly, as she moved to stand right next to Meg and place a hand on her shoulder.

Henriksen recoiled.

“Who are you?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at the woman. Meg couldn’t have said it better herself. She’d figured the woman was going to be the “good detective”, but she extended her hand towards Henriksen to introduce herself.

“Jessica Moore, I’m Miss Masters’ attorney. And I would like to speak with my client for a moment, if you don’t mind.”

Henriksen’s fury was clear in his face, but he scrambled to get every picture from Meg’s file back in his folder and exited the room, banging the door on his way out. Jessica Moore shook her head and pulled the chair Henriksen had been using to sit right next to Meg. Meg eyed her: she had her curly blonde hair tied up in a ponytail and very little make-up. As if she hadn’t had time to do much more about her appearance before she’d showed up there.

“You’re not my attorney,” she pointed out.

“I’m a friend of Sam’s,” Jessica explained. “He called in a favor.”

“He did?”

Jessica smiled reassuringly.

“I need to know what happened, Meg. If you took anything illegal, that will violate the terms of your probation…”

“I didn’t take anything!” Meg replied. “Fuck, I didn’t even know that Ruby would come back to my place and…”

She started getting choked up again. Jessica stood up and walked towards the door.

“Can I have a glass of water for my client? Thank you.”

She came back from a plastic cup and offered it to her. Meg took several trembling sips from it while Jessica waited patiently for her to calm down.

“Alright, let’s take it from the top,” she said, when Meg seemed in conditions to speak. “What was your relationship with Ruby?”

If it had been someone else or a different occasion, Meg would have clammed up. But she hadn’t known in how much trouble she was in until Henriksen started “fishing for a confession for something she didn’t do”, as Jessica put it when Henriksen was invited back in the room.

“My client is willing to offer a blood sample to prove she has been clean since her arrest,” Jessica said. She didn’t add “and sober”, but Meg hoped that wouldn’t show up in the blood exam. “She’s also willing to tell you what she knows about Ruby Cortese and her associates, but not if you’re going to present bogus charges against her that you and I know will be a waste of all of our times.”

Henriksen looked angry. Almost as if he wanted so bad to charge Meg with something and Jessica was outright ruining his fun.

“Fine,” he accepted. “But I’m holding her for the night until we have the autopsy’s preliminary report to rule out any foul play.”

Jessica clenched her jaw, as if she wanted to argue, but in the end decided it was best to just collaborate with Henriksen so he would get off their backs. Meg told him about Abaddon (real name, Josie Sanders) and Lucifer (she didn’t know his real name) and what Ruby had said about her business. She told him about her fight with Ruby in the alleyway and where she had been all afternoon after that. Henriksen wrote down everything and then called for a uniformed officer to walk her to what looked like a hospital room.

There was a screen separating the place where she was sat and waited for the nurse to take her blood sample, but Meg’s eyes still couldn’t help but to be drawn towards it.

Was Ruby there, lying on a cold steel gurney? Was she…?

The needle’s prick startled and a second later, everything was over.

It was four in the morning. Meg caught a glimpse of the clock in the station’s wall as they walked her past the officers’ desk and into the back of the station. The holding cell’s door slammed right behind her and the officers finally left her alone with Jessica again.

“Don’t worry,” she told her. “Henriksen has nothing and he knows it. I’ll be back in the morning and I’m sure we’ll be able to take you home.”

“Thank you,” Meg muttered. “I don’t know if I can pay you…”

“Don’t worry about that. Like I said, I owed Sam some favors,” Jessica interrupted her. “Try and get some sleep.”

Meg thought it was going to be impossible, with the cell’s dim light right on her face while she laid down on the bunk bed and the noises of the station muffled in the distance. But she must have been exhausted, because as soon as she laid down on the lower bunk and closed her eyes, she blacked out.

 

* * *

 

She woke up with her stomach growling loudly and the sunlight pouring in the small window above her head. At first, she didn’t know what had woken her, but when the cell’s door clattered open, it became clear she couldn’t avoid reality anymore.

She didn’t know who she was expecting. Henriksen, maybe, to berate her some more. Maybe Jessica to announce her that she could finally go home. Her mother, who someone had called despite her pleas, ready to tell her how stupid and what an embarrassment she was.

Instead, she found Cesar Cuevas, her probation officer, holding two plastic cups in his hands.

“You gave me quite the scare last night, Meg,” he said.

“Yeah? I wasn’t exactly having a ride in the park myself,” Meg groaned. She scooted on the bunk so Cesar could sit by her side. He handed her one of the cups. The coffee was too hot and bitter. Meg drank it down anyway.

“You have to excuse Henriksen. He just likes to be… very thorough,” Cesar continued.

Meg wanted to tell him that wasn’t the word she would have used about a guy who had assumed she was worried about her own skin when someone she’d known very well just died, but decided to keep quiet for now.

“I knew you weren’t involved,” he told her. “You’ve actually been doing great.”

Meg wondered how he would know that. He only saw her every two weeks to take her pee sample and make sure she was doing her hours at the shelter. He couldn’t have possibly known how she was doing.

“I’ve been doing this job for many years, Meg. I can tell when someone doesn’t want to get help,” he continued, as if he had read Meg’s mind. “You, I expected to be back in trouble by April. I was glad you proved me wrong.”

“Why, thanks,” she said, though she wasn’t sure it was a compliment.

“But I was worried about the friends you kept,” Cesar continued. “And I was right about that.”

Meg breathed in deeply. It was as if the mention of it had made the pain come rushing back and now there was a lump in her throat again all of the sudden.

“What’s going to happen to Ruby… to her… her body?”

“Well, if nobody claims it, it will be cremated. And if no one claims the ashes, they’re going to be stored away for a while,” Cesar explained, patiently. “Do you know of someone who will do that for Ruby?”

Meg shook her head.

“I think her father lived in San Francisco, but she wasn’t in speaking terms with him.”

She didn’t tell Cesar about all the other things Ruby had told him, like how her father had abused both her and her mother, how she had escaped several times before she finally was eighteen and they couldn’t make her come back anymore, the years she had spent living on the streets. It was odd. Meg didn’t think Ruby had ever found a home after that. She had lived with her and with her other lovers in short bouts, but never for too long. When she was in love with Ruby, Meg had thought that was because Ruby had been a free spirit. Now she was wondering if it was because she had been scared to be tied down, to form a connection with someone.

Because it hurt like hell when they were gone.

“Okay.” Cesar patted her in the shoulder and stood up. “Your blood tests came back clean. Henriksen might call you again if he needs to corroborate some details with you, but for now, you’re free to go.”

He made it sound like it was so simple. “You’re free to go”. As if that was going to change what’d happened. As if she could just go back to her business as usual.

She decided against commenting on that. She simply followed him out of the holding cell and back into the station.

Castiel, Jessica and the Winchesters were sitting on a bench near the door. As soon as they saw her coming, they all stood up.

“Meg…” Castiel started saying, but Meg didn’t feel like talking: she just walked up to him and threw her arms around his neck.

Castiel didn’t question it. He held her tight against him and softly rubbed his hand in a circular pattern on her back, muttering over and over that it was alright. It was such a relief to hear his voice that Meg didn’t even question how right or wrong he was this time.

“Thank you,” she said.

Jessica looked tired, as if she hadn’t been able to go back to sleep after Sam had called her. But she smiled at Meg nonetheless.

“My pleasure. Next time I am going to charge you, though,” she joked. She patted her jacket pocket and extended a card to Meg. “But seriously, if you need anything, just call me.”

She turned around and gave a quick hug to Dean.

“Hey, don’t be a stranger, Jess,” he said.

Meg was sure Jessica would prefer never to see them again. It was extremely awkward when Sam also moved in for a hug, but Jessica offered him her hand instead.

“Goodbye, Sam,” she said. Her tone wasn’t angry or bitter. Just extremely sad. And so was Sam’s eyes while he held on to her hand for a few seconds too long.

“Yes. Thank you for… all of this.”

Jessica turned around and strutted out of the station without waiting for them.

“Well, there she goes again,” Dean commented.

“Shut up,” Sam snapped. He turned towards Castiel and Meg. “She was my ex-fiancée. We were together when we were both in Law School. Before I became a junkie and dropped out.”

“Oh,” Castiel said. “You didn’t have to…”

“You were wondering,” Sam said, with a shrug that wasn’t nearly as nonchalant as he was probably hoping. “Now you know. We should just… why don’t we take Meg and you home?”

“Yeah, maybe I’ll get to catch another glimpse of Meg’s pretty neighbor,” Dean said.

The fact that no one laughed must have been indication enough of how inappropriate that comment was, because he immediately wiped the smiled off his face and tried to look properly somber. He fooled exactly no one.

The ride back to Meg’s building was dreadfully silent, except for when Castiel informed her that they had found Meg’s keys on the coffee table and taken them before the police arrived. Meg didn’t remember them saying that. Then again, she only remembered Castiel dragging her out of there.

It felt like it had been ages ago.

They could have dropped her off at the door, but they insisted on walking her upstairs anyway.

The place was a mess. The police had moved the couch and the coffee table, but they hadn’t bothered to put them back where they were before. The coats on Meg’s hanger were on the floor and there were stains on the couch where Ruby had died. Meg didn’t dare to look at them.

“We can get rid of that, if you want,” Dean offered. “I think Ash has a friend who deals in old pieces of furniture…”

“I don’t want to think about that right now,” Meg said, shaking her head. “I don’t want to think about anything. I just want to go to sleep.”

The Winchesters exchanged a look, but they nodded and stepped outside. Castiel remained exactly where he was.

“You don’t have to stay here,” he told her. “Like I told you, my guest’s room is available.”

“You’ve done more than enough, Cas,” Meg replied.

Castiel looked at her very closely and as always, Meg had the impression that his impossibly blue eyes could see right through all her bullshit.

“I don’t think you should be alone right now.”

“I’ll be fine,” Meg told him. “Really. I just need to get some rest.”

Castiel twisted his mouth as if he was getting ready to insist, but in the end, he merely nodded. He grabbed both of Meg’s hands and squeezed them tight.

“You can call me. Anything you need, just call me.”

Meg promised him she would and finally all the boys left.

For a few seconds, she stood in the middle of a living room, unable to move. Then, as if a jolt of electricity had gone down her spine, she sprang to action: she raided her cabinets until she found her stash of whiskey. With trembling hands, she unscrewed the lid and poured the golden liquid in a glass she didn’t even bother to wash until it was filled to the brim. Her pulse was so shaky and her desperation to numb the pain she felt inside was so great that she spilled whiskey down her chin and neck when she lifted up to drink. She didn’t even care how much it burned as it went down her throat.

When she put it down, she managed to take a few shaky breaths before she burst into uncontrollable sobs.

 

* * *

 

The two weeks that followed were rough. There could have been three weeks, in fact, but Meg lost complete notion of time. She was waking up early and pulling double-shifts in the shelter, taking on more chores than she had to, cleaning and rubbing until whatever it was that she was busying herself with was spotless and brilliant. She came in early and left early so the Moms Club didn’t have the chance to entrap her with offers of tea and Castiel couldn’t walk with her to the subway station. She didn’t want to talk about Ruby, she didn’t want his pity. She just wanted to forget about everything for a while.

At night, she downed the sleeping pills she hadn’t touched in months with a shot of alcohol, and they knocked her out right away, but never for long enough. She was up again at the crack of dawn, made herself some Irish coffee and left for St. Michael’s again.

She was actually a bit surprised at how long she managed to keep it up before they sent Benny to speak to her.

“Can I talk to you for a second, Meg?”

Meg looked over her shoulder from where she was standing in the sink. Ben was sitting on the table that was usually used for drinking tea and playing cards and he had a calm, yet earnest expression on his bearded face. She could’ve sworn that Max had been there as well two seconds ago too, but now he was nowhere to be found. She was alone with the shelter’s resident therapist.

That couldn’t be good. She decided she needed to keep calm. The last thing she needed was people there telling her she had to slow down or go home.

“Sure.” She turned off the tap and sat down in front of Benny. “What’s up?”

“I think you know, Meg,” he said. “People have come to tell me they’re worried about you.”

“What people?”

“Donna. Sam.” He made a little pause, as if to accentuate the name he was about to pronounce. “Castiel.”

Meg bit the inside of her cheek. Why, oh, why did they always to be so nice to her? Why hadn’t she tried to push them away harder when she had the chance? Now she was heading straight to a breakdown and every one of them would be worried and she didn’t want to…

“Well, I appreciate it. But I’m fine.”

“I don’t think you are,” Benny said. As always, he cut straight through the bullshit. “You went through something extremely upsetting and you lost a close friend. I can’t imagine how you could possibly be fine.”

“I’m handling it,” Meg said immediately.

Benny nodded very slowly.

“You said the same thing to me back in January, remember?” he reminded her. “You said you were aware that you were an alcoholic, but as long as you were functional, you saw no reason to change your ways.”

Meg tilted her head. She couldn’t imagine where Benny was going with all of this.

“I think you hurting yourself is enough reason to want to change,” he continued. “But then, we would also have to address your depression and self-esteem issues and I don’t think you want to do that.”

“Wow, it took you nine months to come up with that answer?” Meg said. She let out a chuckle and sarcastically clapped at Benny. “Congratulations on your brain fart!”

He didn’t laugh at her joke. He merely kept staring at her in silence, until Meg was forced to shake her head and go back to the serious conversation.

“Look, I just don’t want to think about it, okay? I don’t want to…”

“I understand that,” Benny said. “It’s natural to want to avoid the pain. But if you do that, you risk making it worse in the long run. You have to allow yourself to mourn. Has Ruby had a funeral?”

“No,” Meg muttered. “I don’t even know what they did with her body, if they contacted her dad or if they tracked down Abaddon or… someone. It’s funny. Ruby always seemed to make friends wherever she went, get the cutest girls… but she didn’t really have anyone.”

She stopped, surprised. She didn’t know where all of that had come from or why she was telling it to Benny.

“She had you,” he pointed out softly.

“Yeah, and what good did it do it to her? She needed help and I just pushed her away. Some friend I turned out to be.”

“No, Meg. You tried to help Ruby multiple times in the past, didn’t you? Ruby was the one who couldn’t help herself. So this isn’t on you.”

Meg wanted to laugh again, because, hadn’t she? She’d warned Ruby over and over that the drugs would kill her. Ruby knew how dangerous they were, but she had been playing with fire too long. She knew how not to get burned. That night when she’d come back to Meg’s apartment, she hadn’t just been planning to get high and wait for her or ransack the place for whatever petty cash she could get. Perhaps that had been her original plan, but after the fight they had in the alleyway, Ruby had decided to douse herself in gasoline and light the match in the hopes Meg would burn too.

That was the suspicion Meg couldn’t bring herself to say out loud. That Ruby’s overdose hadn’t been an accident. That she had used heroin instead of a gun or a razor. That she had decided to die on Meg’s couch knowing Meg wouldn’t be back in time to save her.

To punish her. And perhaps Meg deserved it, a little. Because she had been sunk too deep into her own self-pity and alcoholism to do anything for anyone else.

She couldn’t speak. There was suddenly a lump on her throat choking her and her cheeks were wet. Benny stood up, fetch some napkins and offered them to her so she could blow her nose.

“Perhaps you should…”

“Don’t tell me I should go home,” Meg interrupted him. Her voice sounded broken and horse. “If you send me home, I’m going to drink myself to death.”

Oh, shit, she shouldn’t have said that. Was Benny going to send her to some kind of actual psychiatrist now or…?

“Okay,” he said, nodding slightly. “Try not to do that, please. We would miss you greatly.”

Meg scoffed.

“I don’t want you to. I don’t want anyone to feel bad because of me.”

“You know, Meg, I don’t think you really have a saying in that matter. People will care for you whether you want it or not and no matter how many walls you build around yourself,” Ben explained. “Now, you can pretend that your issues only affect yourself, and that’s fine. But eventually, you’re gonna have to come to terms with the fact that no man is an island. And if even if it seems that you have no friends… someone will be hurt by you self-destructing. Like Ruby hurt you.”

Meg breathed in sharply. She didn’t know why, but Benny’s words felt a bit like a slap in the face. Wasn’t that exactly what she had told Ruby? That she was selfish for trying to drag people down with her?

Hadn’t she been doing exactly that by bringing all of her issues to St. Michael’s?

“Give me your cellphone,” Benny requested.

“What for?”

Benny simply extended his hand until Meg reluctantly handed it to her. He wrote something in it and gave it back to her. Meg noticed she had added his number to her contacts.

“If you need to talk about anything, or if you just need someone to hear you cry, don’t hesitate to call me.” He stood up and put a hand on her shoulder. “You’re not alone, Meg.”

He walked out of the kitchen before Meg could muster an answer. Three seconds later, as if she had been waiting by the door, Missouri returned.

“What are you doing sitting on your ass, girl?” she asked, glaring at Meg. “Come on, those dishes ain’t gonna put themselves away!”

And honestly, being bossed around by Missouri felt like a relief after that conversation.

 

* * *

 

Sunday morning found her with a hangover in her apartment again. She took slow, deep drags of her cigarette in between sips of her coffee while she watched the guy she had picked up the night before at the nearby bar finish getting dressed.

“I had a good time last night,” he said, as he tied up his boots.

What was his name? Zain, Zach? Something with a Z. It didn’t matter. She had chosen him for his strong jaw and his blue eyes that weren’t the exact shade of blue she wanted, but she could let her imagination carry her away while she lied down on her stomach with her back turned to him.

“Yeah,” Meg muttered. “Me too.”

That was a lie. He had been mediocre at best, one of those guys who thought fucking a girl doggy style was the height of erotic experiences. But at least he’d had the decency to care whether she finished or not and dispose of his own condom. He had asked her whether she wanted him to stay and interpreted Meg’s disinterested “Do what you want” as an invitation to spend the night and try to cuddle with her that morning. What a gentleman.

Perhaps that was why she had brought him home. He seemed safe and nice. After Lucifer, she was done with sexy guys who seemed interesting and dangerous, but would screw her over given the chance. This had been meaningless and boring, but maybe meaningless and boring was exactly what she should aspire to get from sex in the future. Genuinely falling in love or in lust with someone was just too much work; it brought on too much heartbreak.

He zipped up his grey hoodie and smiled.

“Well, I guess I’ll be going,” he said. “Unless you want to go for another round?”

“Yeah, sorry. The couch is new and I don’t wanna ruin it yet,” Meg replied. She was saved from having to elaborate further when her cellphone began ringing. “I gotta take this,” she said without even looking at the screen to see who it was.

“Okay. Take care of yourself, Meg.”

“You too, Zach.”

He stopped on his tracks and frowned at her.

“It’s Zeke,” he corrected her.

Meg picked up her phone and very deliberately pressed it against her ear.

“Yes, hello?”

At least that was enough for Zeke to take his cue and leave. When she heard the voice at the other end, Meg immediately wished she had asked him to stay.

“Meg? Is it you?”

Abaddon’s voice sounded as sultry as ever.

“How did you get my number?”

“I, uh… I found it on Ruby’s phone.”

Meg hadn’t even considered what had happened to Ruby’s stuff. Or on calling Abaddon. She’d just figured the police would deal with that.

“Oh.”

“Yeah.” Abaddon allowed her a second of pause before up and saying what she needed from Meg: “Look, they called me from the coroner’s office. The autopsy was done last week and I told them to go ahead and cremate her.”

Meg closed her eyes and gulped down the rest of her coffee in a futile attempt to dissolve the sudden lump in her throat.

“Why are you telling me this?”

“I’m not in town,” Abaddon explained. “Apparently, Lucifer ratted out my name to the cops, so I had to get rid of all my merch and leave for a while. Fucker.”

Meg gritted her teeth. If Abbadon wanted to think it had been Lucifer, she was not about to correct her.

“Anyway, someone needs to go pick up the urn.”

“What about her dad?”

“Come on. You know she hated his guts.” She made another pause. “But she didn’t hate you.”

“Josie…”

“Even when she was with me she was always going on and on about how you were much better than me and you would never treat her the way I did.” She chuckled, but it was a mirthless sound. “I’m not stupid, okay? I know she was only with me because she was a junkie and I could get her her fix… I don’t know why I’m telling you all of this.”

Meg said nothing. She didn’t know, either.

“I just… I think you’d know better than me what to do with her ashes. Sprinkle them somewhere nice or… I have no idea.”

“Yeah.” Meg breathed in deeply. “I’ll come up with something.”

Abddon sighed with relief. As if she was very happy that Meg had agreed to take this burden off her shoulders.

“Thank you.”

Meg ended the call without saying goodbye. After a moment to think, she served herself another cup of coffee and added a shot of whiskey to it.

 

* * *

 

She wasn’t sure how to feel about the little wooden box they handed her at the coroner’s office. It was barely the size of a book, it had Ruby’s name inscribed in a little plaque on the top and it weighed… much less than she had expected it to.

Perhaps because it was hard to believe that the entirety of Ruby’s life had been reduced to that. Ruby and her laughter and her seemingly never-ending schemes and the way she had to make terrible ideas seem brilliant.

Meg set it down on her coffee table. It was Monday night, the last of the month. She had left the shelter early to pick up Ruby’s remains and she’d had to sign a lot of paperwork and pay back the cost of the cremation, which meant she would have to eat Missouri’s meals for a week or two.

She didn’t know if it was worth it.

She placed two glasses in front of her and filled them up. She slid one close to Ruby’s urn and clank hers against it.

“Why do you always get me in trouble, Ruby?” she asked softly.

The silence in her apartment suddenly was too heavy and too macabre for her to stand. She downed her glass of whiskey and walked around nervously, trying to get her thoughts in order. As usual, she reached the conclusion Ruby couldn’t stay there. It was too harsh a reminder of what had happened.

But she couldn’t just dump her anywhere. It had to be somewhere nice and tall, somewhere Ruby could find the freedom she had lacked in her life: from her past, from the drugs, from everything that had held her back…

Meg browsed through her contact list. So many people that had told her she could call them if she needed something, from Jessica to Benny, to the Winchesters and Donna, Ash and Garth who had come to get rid of her couch, and Jody and Missouri, and Charlie and Jo… Meg couldn’t even remember when she had added their numbers, but they weren’t the ones she needed to talk to right now.

Castiel answered after the second ring.

“Meg? Are you okay? What is it?”

He sounded so worried and given Meg’s history, she couldn’t blame him for assuming that something was wrong.

“I’m fine,” she told him. “Listen, I need you to drive me to the Grand Canyon.”

“What?”

“To scatter Ruby’s ashes,” Meg explained. “We always said we were going to go and we never had the chance… it just seems fitting, you know?”

There was a long silence on the other side.

“I guess,” Castiel said in the end. “Are you allowed to leave the state?”

“I would have to double check with Cesar,” Meg said. She was pretty sure the answer to that question was no, but she decided not to bring attention to that right now. “But I just can’t think of anything else to do with her.”

There was another silence and suddenly it hit her like a ton of bricks what she was asking him to do: to drop everything for two or three days to drive her there and back, to spend hours with her on a car on an endless road, when she knew he was worried about the state of the shelter and he needed to be on top of things there and…

“I’m sorry,” she said, as the energy her bolt of inspiration had given her drained from her body. “I shouldn’t have bothered you. It’s a stupid idea. I’ll… I’ll figure out something else…”

“Meg, wait,” Castiel said, correctly predicting she was about to end the call. There was another silence and then he sighed. “This is insane.”

“I’m aware,” she admitted.

“Would this help you find closure?”

Meg thought about the question for a moment.

“I don’t know about closure,” she admitted in the end. “But, uh… maybe I can do this one last thing right. For Ruby.”

Castiel hesitated for another moment. Meg fully expected to hear him say that it was impossible, that he was busy, that this was not what he meant when he said she could call him whenever…

“When are we leaving?” he asked instead.


	10. October

Meg awoke with a startle and a gasp. Her mind was raging and confused. What happened? Where was she? Why wasn’t she in her bed and what was that knocking…?

It took several more seconds than she was willing to admit for her to realize what was going on.

She was somewhere in… Oregon, she thought? She had fallen asleep watching the monotonous landscape, because waking up at six in the morning was against every single one of her instincts. The tapping was Castiel knocking on the car’s window. She rolled it down and he handed her a plastic cup filled to the brim with steaming hot coffee.

“Would you like some sugar with that?” he asked. “I can get you some.”

“Thanks. It’s fine.”

She burned her tongue and probably part of her esophagus, but after a few sips, she felt awake enough to open the door and stretch her legs. The station was a Gas‘N’Sip lost in the middle of nowhere, with only just another couple of cars refilling the tank and buying supplies for the road. The weather was still mild enough, but being the beginning of October, Meg imagined not a lot of people chose to do that peregrination to the Grand Canyon.

“What time is it?” she asked with a yawn.

“Eleven o’clock. We can buy some sandwiches for the road here or we can stop in the next over for lunch.”

That seemed like way too complicated a decision to be taking it while she was still not entirely awake. Her head ached a little. She supposed that was an effect of having fallen asleep with her forehead pressed against the window's glass. She rubbed her temples and looked at Castiel, who was staring out in the distance while he pensively sipped his coffee.

It had only taken them a week or so to plan the entire trip, but Meg honestly felt like she had been waiting for it for an eternity. She didn't want people at the shelter to know that they were spending that weekend together going on an impromptu road trip and she didn't think Castiel wanted to deal with the rumors either. So they both needed to find some sort of excuse for their absence from Friday to Sunday, when they were expecting to be back.

There was also the matter that apparently people couldn't just scatter human remains in a national park, so Meg had to ask for a permit online that was a pain in the ass to fill. She wasn't sure about the legality of crossing state lines with the urn in the first place or if she was violating the terms of her probation or not, but she figured that as long as no one caught her driving without a permit, it would be fine. It was better to ask forgiveness than permission after all.

There was also the fact that she was going to spend so many hours alone in a car with Castiel, not to mention the two nights they were going to spend sleeping on motels by the side of the road. She had been tempted to pack sexy underwear and shirts that exposed her midriff or her shoulders, but in the end, common sense had won. They were hiking up the damn thing in the middle of Arizona and besides… nothing was going to happen. She knew it and Castiel knew it. There was no point in pretending it would.

Still, she had stayed awake the night before with nervous energy boiling in her stomach, tossing and turning and wondering…

By the time Castiel called her to tell her he was downstairs, Meg had slept a grand total of two hours, so it wasn’t surprising she had fallen asleep ten minutes into the trip. She sighed and open the door so she could stretch her legs and leaned against the car with Castiel while they finished their coffee.

“Sorry,” she told him with another yawn. “I’m not being the most animated travel companion today.”

“It’s fine,” Castiel said, chuckling softly. “It’s better that you rest now so you can help me stay awake in the evening.”

Meg was about to make a sex joke, but she bit her tongue at the last second.

“I think we should get the sandwiches,” she said. “I want us to stop as little as possible today.”

She was more awake during the second part of the trip, enough that she could try to get something on the radio only to give up when it was obvious they were getting nothing but static for the miles and miles of empty road ahead of them.

She didn’t know why she wanted to get some music on. Perhaps because she wanted to avoid precisely the awkward silence that fell inside the car when she turned it off with a huff.

“I should have gotten some CDs or perhaps borrowed Sam’s Ipod. I’m sorry I didn’t think of that,” he said.

“Yeah.” Meg stopped to glance at him for a moment. “What music do you listen to, anyway?”

He frowned and sneaked a quick glance at her before turning his eyes back to the road.

“Why are you asking me that?”

“Just a question.” Meg shrugged. She looked outside the window for a moment, at the sun beating down on the asphalt and the empty fields all around them. “It’s… it’s weird, you know. I’ve known you for almost a year. I’ve learnt some pretty big things about you and you’ve seen me on really bad days. And we almost always talk about the news or your weird animal obsessions every other time. I don’t think I know what you’re like when either of us is not on a crisis.”

She immediately regretted choosing that line of interrogation. Especially because there was no way to escape it, save opening the door and lunging herself out of the moving car.

But for whatever reason, Castiel smiled.

“I guess you’re right. But those are the things you get to know about someone when you, uh… spend more time with them. In an informal setting.” He cleared his throat.

Meg said nothing. She knew that the both of them were looking back on their disastrous date back in the summer. If he had told her about his issues sooner, if she had moved slower and hadn’t been so eager…

She shook her head. There was no point in thinking about the past.

“I do like spending time with you,” she admitted. “I think, of all the people who are in my life right now, you’re the one I like spending time with the most. Formally or informally.”

It was Castiel’s turn to remain quiet, at least until he realize that Meg wasn’t going to continue the conversation. His hands clutched the wheel tightly for a moment before he breathed out and finally spoke:

“I like classical and jazz. I prefer instrumental music. I think there’s something powerful about it, about what it can make you feel.” He made a pause. “Dean has told me my musical taste is in dire need of an upgrade…”

“And he’d be right,” Meg agreed, only to shake her head. “But what does a guy who doesn’t listen to anything this side of the eighties know anyway?”

That made him laugh. The grip around the wheel became looser and his shoulders weren’t as tense as before. Meg watched him close and found that she was smiling as well. It was such a silly joke to share. So many things that they shared were silly.

And yet, she’d missed this. She’d missed him walking her to the subway station and waiting for her to get on her train first. She’d missed the long silences and the sudden giggles when they worked together side by side. She’d been in such a dark, awful place without him and she couldn’t believe that it’d only occurred to her just recently to reach out to him again.

“What about you?”

“I listen to whatever’s on the radio,” Meg explained with a shrug. “I’m partial to rock, though.”

“I figured as much.”

Meg arched an eyebrow at him.

“Are you calling me predictable, Castiel Milton?”

“I would never dare to insult you in such a way, no,” he replied. But the way his lips curved upwards and trembled, as if he couldn’t contain his laughter, told a different story.

Meg gently punched him on the arm and they both laughed softly.

“Okay, your turn,” she said.

“My turn?”

“Ask a question,” she dared him. “Anything you want to know.”

Castiel tilted his head and stayed quiet for a very long time.

“Really? There’s nothing you want to know about me?” Meg insisted.

“There’s a lot I still want to know. That’s what makes it hard to choose a question.”

How? How did he always manage to catch her off-guard with questions like that and how did he always made her feel warm and fuzzy inside when he expressed exactly how he felt about her? It just didn’t seem fair that he could have such an effect on her that easily.

“What was the last book you read?” he asked in the end.

“I don’t even remember.” Meg bit the inside of her cheek and found it hard to confess that she didn’t have the energy to read much those days. “Some cheap, awful erotica that was free on Amazon.”

“Okay.” Castiel sighed and shook his head. “That wasn’t really what I wanted to know, though.”

“Oh?” Meg said, arching her eyebrow. That was a strange confession to make.

Castiel breathed in deeply, as if he needed to gather courage for what he was about to say.

“Did you read the book I got you for your birthday?”

So that was a question entirely and Meg couldn’t blame him for going about in a roundabout way. She figured he also didn’t want to think much about that night and how disastrously it had ended.

“I did,” she told him. “I actually kind of devour it.”

“Did you like it?”

“I loved it!” Meg said, and she wasn’t lying. “A bloody murder, hot sex scenes, a plot twist? It had everything a girl could ask for.”

“I didn’t choose with the sex scenes in mind,” he said, his cheeks growing slightly pink. “I just read some reviews and the plot sounded interesting.”

“Oh, that’s just rude, Clarence. It’s not nice to give books you haven’t read yourself as a present. You got lucky this time, but what if it had been bad?”

Her protests made him laugh again. And really, what more could she ask for?

“I’ll keep it in mind for next time.”

“You better,” Meg said. She looked outside of the window for a while, tasting the words she wanted to say out loud, because she wasn’t sure how they’d sound once they actually left her mouth. “Thank you. For the gift. You didn’t have to do that.”

“It’s customary to give gifts on someone’s birthday,” he pointed out matter-of-factly.

“Yeah.” Meg tapped her fingers against her knee and then figured it was only fair she made a confession of her own. “You do know the birthday thing was an excuse, right? I just wanted to get you alone with me.”

Castiel turned to look at her, wide-eyed parted before he remembered he was supposed to be looking at the road. His hands held unto the wheel tight and he opened and closed his mouth several times, like a fish drowning out of the water. Meg had managed, for once, to leave him speechless.

She was also aware she had crossed some sort of invisible line. As long as they didn’t acknowledge the truth about their feelings, as long as they pretended it was something they might have felt one time, but had gotten over, then they didn’t have to think about it. They could lie to themselves that they were okay just being friends and that was all they could ever aspire to be.

But Meg was done pretending she was over it.

Castiel cleared his throat, as if he still was looking for something to say.

“You…” he started, then interrupted himself only to start again: “I… it was…”

“Cas, come on.” Meg rolled her eyes. “If it had really been a date, I would have asked you to the movies or to have a coffee or something as asinine as that. Not to my apartment, late at night, when we would be all alone.”

“So it wasn’t a date?”

That was a complicated question. Meg took a few seconds to think about it.

“I think it was the only way I know how to date,” she admitted in the end. “You just… fall in bed with someone and if it’s good, you call them back and suddenly you’re together. All my relationships have started that way.”

Castiel said nothing to that for a while.

“Oh,” he said in the end.

“I mean, that’s all there is for some people, right?” she continued. “You have sex with them and it’s good and then they turn out to be really shitty people. But for a while you fall in love with their bodies. It’s the least dangerous part of someone to fall in love with.”

She was rambling. She went quiet and suddenly felt like she had thrown a wrench in what had been up until now a very lighthearted conversation. Well, fuck. Now she definitely wanted jump out of the moving car.

“I wouldn’t know about that,” Castiel said after a moment.

“Can I ask you something really personal?” Meg said, because since they were being brutally honest, she might as well go for it. “Was there no one else? After April, I mean.”

“How am I supposed to answer to that?” Castiel asked. He sounded irritated and Meg backed down fast:

“You don’t have to. I’m sorry.”

They got caught behind an eighteen-wheeler. Castiel slowed down and sighed.

“I can’t fall in love with people’s bodies,” he said in the end. “I fall in love with their minds or with their hearts. Yes, there were some people after April, people I’ve genuinely loved. But if you’re referring to physical intimacy… that’s more complicated.”

That was one way to put it, Meg supposed.

“Why the hell did you agree to go on a date with me, then?”

That puzzled him enough that he had to sneak another glance at her.

“What do you mean?”

“Cas. Come on.”

He couldn’t tell her he had liked her for her personality. She had been nothing but a bitch to everyone around her and she was well aware of it. Why pretend otherwise?

He finally caught her drift.

“You think… you genuinely think that your… your body, your physical beauty, is all you have to offer?”

“Well, I am an incredibly shallow person,” Meg said.

Her joke fell flat. Castiel shook his head, incredulous.

“You were also the first person to notice that something was wrong when I was worried about the budgetary cuts,” he pointed out. “You tried cheering me up with your jokes, with your chat, with those origami figurines you used to make me. I always try to keep a brave face on for everyone around me, but it was as if you saw right through me, each and every time.”

Meg’s breath got caught in her throat. A part of her, the little voice that always insisted that it was pointless to get out of bed in the morning, didn’t believe him. She couldn’t believe him. He was just saying those things to be kind, because that was the person he was, because he didn’t want to hurt her feelings by telling her that he had indeed realize she was a complete mess and someone it was best to stay away from.

Except that his sincerity was so simple and so devastating it left her defenseless. He too had the capacity to see through her, through her bullshit, through her walls. He saw the darkness she tried to keep at bay and he still hadn’t run away screaming.

It wasn’t fair. How was she supposed to keep him at arm’s length under those circumstances?

“I think…” he continued. “I think the best way to describe you is ‘thorny’. You don’t love easily, Meg. But those you do love, you love them with all your might.”

“You can’t know that,” she said and was surprised when her voice came out like a hoarse croak. “You really don’t know me all that well, Cas.”

“What happened the night of your accident?” he asked. “What really happened? I read the file, Meg. Ruby was there with you, wasn’t she?”

Meg shook her head. It was impossible that he had found out about that, wasn’t it?

Then again, she could never keep secrets for too long around Castiel.

“I wasn’t driving,” she admitted. She hadn’t expected the words to come so easily, but as they rolled off her tongue, it was as if a dam broke and everything came floating out: “We were at a party. I don’t even remember who the host was. We ran out of pretzels and Ruby and I volunteered to go buy more because I had taken my brother’s car without him knowing it. I had been drinking, like the damn alcoholic I am, but I didn’t know Ruby had taken some hardcore pills, so I gave the keys to her. When we crashed she was panicking. I told her to calm down. We were going to tell the cops I was the one behind the wheel.” She stopped for a moment to breathe in. “I knew I was going to be fine. My mom and my stepdad weren’t going to let me go to jail. But if Ruby had been caught and they’d tested her blood… she had no one to defend her. She had a record. There was no way they would’ve let her walk with just probation and community service hours.”

Something warm and rough came to rest on top of her hand. Castiel smiled at her and gently intertwined his fingers with her. Meg realized suddenly that he’d known that all along or, at least, that he had begun suspecting it when Ruby had opened her mouth about it.

“You see?” he said. “I do know you.”

He did. Better than she could’ve possibly imagined, better than she’d ever allowed other people to know her.

It was terrifying. And she wouldn’t have changed it for anything in the world.

Castiel let go of her hand and sped up to pass the truck. But as soon as they were on the other side, he extended his hand to her again. She hesitated for a second before grabbing it and squeezing it tight.

And she didn’t remember letting it go for the rest of the trip.

 

* * *

 

They talked about much lighter topics after Meg could stop crying. Castiel wasn’t a big movie buff like Meg, which she find unforgivable and started listing all the things he needed to watch. He just laughed at all her suggestion and promised her he would check them out.

“No, not good enough.” She shook her head. “I’m gonna have to make sure you do it. We have to have a movie night so you can check them all out…”

She went quiet when she realized what she was suggesting. But Castiel just laughed softly and replied:

“I would like that.”

By the time the afternoon fell, the conversation died down because Castiel was exhausted and Meg couldn’t replace him behind the wheel. She would’ve had, but Castiel pointed out that if she was busted by police at this point, she might be considered a fugitive and they would both be in trouble for it. They stopped in a nameless little town six hours from Arizona, where the local Biggerson’s was right next to a dodgy motel where the owner gave them a quizzical look when they requested a room with two beds.

Meg had really not thought about how awkward it would be until they were alone together in the room, standing around as if they didn’t know what to do with themselves.

“Umh…” she started.

“Do you want to use the bathroom first?” Castiel offered her. “I’d go grab something to eat for us…”

He tried vainly to suppress a yawn. It was obvious that he could barely keep his eyes open and he would have another exhausting day of driving the following day, so Meg shook her head.

“How about you do that and I go get us something? How do you like your burgers?”

Castiel protested (because of course he did), but Meg grabbed her wallet and left warning him to have the bathroom be ready by the time she came back. She brought the burgers and stopped by the convenience store nearby to get them something to drink because she wasn’t going to pay for medium plastic cups that would be half-filled with ice anyway.

She grabbed some sodas from the fridge and automatically raised her hands towards the six pack…

She stopped.

She hadn’t had anything to drink since the night before and even that had been just a little to calm her nerves, because she knew she’d have to be up at the crack of dawn. It was odd. Other days, she would be already aching for a beer or a shot of whiskey, anything to put her mind at ease. Now? Sure, having a beer would the comfortable and familiar thing to do.

On the other hand, Castiel was waiting for her back on the motel. Nothing would happen, she knew that.

But even so, she didn’t want to be drunk and saying or acting like an idiot around him. She just wanted to spend time with him, talking like they had when they were in the car.

She was so screwed.

“Hey, lady, you’re going to let all the cold out!” a man warned her.

Meg closed the fridge’s door without getting the six pack.

“Hey, got the burgers,” she called out as she walked inside their room. “Mine’s the one with extra onions and…”

She looked up and completely forgot what she was saying. Castiel had just come out of the bathroom and stood in the doorway, as caught off guard as she was. She was staring shamelessly at him now, but she couldn’t bring herself to stop. She had never realized thick his biceps really were and, geez, how did he managed to button his shirts over those pecs? For some reason, her eyes fixed on one of the drops that slid down his neck and his smooth stomach all the way down to his…

He held unto the white towel around his waist tighter.

“Oh, uh… v-very well,” he stammered. “Umh… I’m done with the shower.”

“Right.” Meg looked away, because that was the only way she was going to manage to concentrate on this conversation. “Do you mind if I…?”

Castiel quickly cleared the way and Meg quickly picked up her toiletry bag and some clothes. Castiel stalked away towards the other side of the room and Meg knew she shouldn’t, but she sneak another glance at him before she closed the bathroom’s door.

She wished she hadn’t. Now she was never going to stop thinking about how broad his shoulders were and how good it would feel to sink her nails in his back muscles while he…

The water was a bit cold, but then again, that was exactly what she needed.

She was really, really screwed. But at least she was doubly glad now she hadn’t bought any alcohol.

Castiel had set the table by the time she came out in her pajama pants and sleeveless shirt. It wasn’t the most sexy outfit, but then again, she supposed neither was his grey shirt and cashmere pants, but Meg’s eyes once again darted to his bulging biceps as he did something as innocuous as setting down the napkins.

“Dinner’s served,” he announced.

“Thanks.” She pulled up a chair and sat down in front of her burger. She took a second and forced herself to look at Castiel in the eye. “I’m sorry if I made you uncomfortable just now.”

“You didn’t,” Castiel said quickly. He cleared his throat. “Don’t worry about it.”

Meg struggle with the impulse to apologize again and in the end, she picked up her burger and took a big bite of it. There was no point in hammering the issue further.

“Okay. So what do you want to do?”

“Excuse me?” Castiel asked, frowning.

“Well, it’s a bit early to go to sleep. I don’t know how good the Wi-Fi’s in this place, but maybe we can download a movie on your phone and watch it together.”

“Oh.” He scratched the back of his neck. “Yes. Let’s do that.”

Meg decided not to ask what he had thought she meant.

The queen size bed was barely big enough for the two of them, so they fumbled for a while before they resigned to the fact that they couldn’t share it without touching each other. Meg decided they were being ridiculous, so while Castiel put the movie on, she laid on her side and placed her head over his shoulder.

Castiel tensed up and she moved away.

“Sorry…”

“No. It’s fine,” he assured her. “You just caught me by surprise.”

He extended his arm, leaving her plenty of room to lay her head on top of him. She chose his chest this time so he didn’t have to hold the phone up for them to watch the screen. It was _Vertigo_ , one of Meg’s favorites that she considered a crime Castiel hadn’t watched, but for some reason, she had the impression neither of them were too focused on it. He lifted his free arm and put it back down a couple of times before Meg said:

“You can hug me if you want. It’s okay.”

There was another moment of hesitation before his hand came to rest over her shoulder. She snuggled a little closer to him and pretended she was more focused on the movie than in the rhythm of his breathing and the beating of his heart. She was hyperaware of the warmth of his body, the soft fabric of his shirt against her cheek, his fingertips over her skin…

“This is…” He sighed and started over. “This is really nice.”

“It’d be nicer if you used this moment to shut up and get educated on one of cinema’s all-time classics,” Meg replied.

His laughter was like a purr. They had missed the first fifteen minutes of the movie by that point and rather than start it over, Castiel kept asking her questions about the characters and who they were. After a few minutes, though, the questions began being more and more spaced out until they finally quieted down completely.

By the time Scottie dragged Judy up the tower, a different kind of sound came from Castiel’s chest: a soft, deep snore. Meg lifted up his head to realize that he had his eyes closed and his head had lolled to the side. The arm he had wrapped around her had also fallen softly over the mattress.

“Clarence?” she called up, but only got another snore in reply.

Chuckling quietly to herself, she took away his phone and plugged into the charger. She then picked up the cover of her own bed and used it to tuck Castiel in. She was tempted to curl up against him once more, but she figured she had already abused her luck too much.

So instead, she went to her own bed and pulled the sheets over her head. She tried not to think about him, slumbering peacefully just a few inches away and how comfortable she had felt in his arms.

 

* * *

 

The Grand Canyon lived up to its hype.

That was the first thing Meg thought as they climbed up to it. They had decided to pass on the skywalk, that even at that time of the year was rather crowded with tourists, and instead stood on a rock nearby, with nothing between them and the rocky fall below them. Meg felt her stomach twisting when she dared to look down through the cheap sunglasses she had purchased at the gift store as the wind blew through her hair.

It was immense and scary and beautiful like nothing she’d ever seen.

“Meg?” Castiel said behind her.

Meg squared her shoulders and look at him, giving him a little nod to assure him she was okay. They’d had a taciturn drive on the way there and she suspected the drive back wouldn’t be much more animated. But for now, they were where they wanted to go. They might as well start before other tourists came to interrupt them.

She opened the urn and grabbed a handful of ashes. It felt like sinking her hand in coarse, grainy sand and when she opened it, the wind blew them away in a grey cloud of dust that dissipated just a second later.

A lump formed in her throat as she picked more of the ashes. Memories of Ruby flooded her mind: Ruby, with her laughter, her long black hair, with her flirty smirk, with the way she had to minimize everything that seemed drastic or dramatic.

But she couldn’t block out the other things too. How manic Ruby’s laughter had been when they were in the car as it skidded on the frozen pavement, while Meg clung unto the seat, terrified. How loud the whirring and clanking of the metal compressing had sounded, how their bodies had shaken violently. The din of broken glass, the stunned silence that had followed where they both sat with their eyes wide open, not quite believing they had just survived that. Ruby’s sobbing. The way her hands always trembled and were always cold and clammy. How Meg had realized, right there and then, that her love for Ruby would kill her one day.

And that was the thing, wasn’t it? As much she had tried denying it, as much as she had tried forgetting it and telling herself that she wasn’t angry when Ruby disappeared, when she didn’t pick up the phone, as much as she’d like pretending that her heart didn’t flutter a little whenever Ruby came around.

She had loved her. Sharp edges and demons and all. And it wasn’t enough.

The last pinch of ashes dissolved in the air. Meg turned the urn around to make sure even the last speck of them. She had never been one for praying, she had never believed that there was anyone who would hear her. But right then, as the tears rolled down her cheeks, she hoped in her heart that Ruby had found the peace she’d never had in life.

 

* * *

 

She cried for hours in the car. Castiel held her hand all the way through and offered her tissues now and then. When they finally stopped by another motel, Meg felt sick to her stomach. She thought she had cried enough the night after Ruby’s death, but now it was like everything was coming back in waves. She couldn’t stop even when they stopped to rest for the night and at one point, she found herself leaning against the toilet, puking her guts out, while Castiel rubbed her back, assuring her over and over that it would be alright. He sat with her in the bathroom’s floor, held her tight and petted her hair. He wasn’t annoyed when her make-up and tears stained his shirt.

Meg wasn’t sure she deserved all that kindness, but she was too selfish to try and push him away at that point.

There was a limit to how much a person could cry, she was finding out. After a while, her loud sobbing remitted and became just soft whimpers and hiccups. Castiel helped her to her feet at point and back to the room to sit on the bed. His touch was always so gentle, as if she would break if he made any brusque movements around her.

“Do you want a cigarette?” he offered her.

“Thank you.”

He picked them up from her bag and held up the lighter to the tip. Meg took a deep, shuddering breath, letting the smoke fill up her lungs. Castiel sat by her side and watched her in silence.

“How are you feeling?”

Meg chuckled, because she thought it would be pretty obvious. But she appreciated the intention behind the question.

“It hurts like hell and I can’t make it stop.”

“I imagined as much,” he admitted. His hand came to rest on her knee while he placed the other one on her cheek and gently pulled her face towards his. “But I’m here for you, Meg. I’m here for whatever you need.”

She hadn’t realized they were sitting that close. She could see the little crinkles of worry around his eyes, the stubble growing in his cheeks.

His lips grazed her temple and she shivered. It was a small, platonic gesture, she knew, meant to console her more than anything else. But her heart started beating so hard it was surprising that he didn’t hear it. She still remember how it had felt to kiss him that night in July, that moment of sheer euphoria that had shaken her to her very core before everything had gone to hell. She still could feel the warm of his embrace and his hands holding her so tight, like he couldn’t wait, like he wanted to melt against her.

She looked up at him, breathing heavily. Castiel’s eyes were wide, as if he too had been surprised by the reaction from that simple gesture. Meg opened her mouth, feeling like she needed to say something, do something, but then he pressed his lips against hers and it suddenly all seem so superficial.

His kiss was sweet and slow, hesitant, as if he was asking her a question. She placed her hand on the back of his neck and pressed him closer to her, opening her mouth to answer that _yes, yes, yes…_

She dropped the cigarette and burnt a hole in the carpet they wouldn’t notice until the following day. She fell backwards on the bed with her arms wrapped around his neck. Castiel kissed her again as he climbed on top her, their legs tangling together and his hand slipping under her shirt to touch her stomach.

That was as far as they went before she realized his hands were trembling.

She put a hand on his chest and softly pushed him away from her.

“No.”

“Meg.” He took a deep breath and looked at her again, his big eyes disarming her like they always did. “It’s okay. I won’t fall apart on you again, I promise.”

Meg placed a hand on his cheek, rough from his stubble and let her thumb draw circles over his skin.

“There’s absolutely nothing I want more,” she admitted. “I don’t think I ever wanted anyone the way I want you.”

“I want you, too,” he said, lowering his face to kiss the edge of her lips. “Meg, let me…”

“No,” she repeated and shook her head. “I don’t want you because you’re wonderful and sexy and because you understand me like no one else. I want you the way I want a drink. I just need something to dull the pain right now.”

Castiel watched her face closely and licked his lips.

“Remember when I told you to let me decided if you were good enough for me or not?” he asked. She nodded. “I’m… if that is all you want, then I…”

“But that is _not_ all I want,” Meg protested. “And it’s not fair for you that I’m using you this way. I don’t want to mess this up like I mess up everything I touch.” She placed her forehead against his so she could be looking right into his eyes as she declared: “You’re too important for me.”

There were other words she was thinking, three other short words she wanted to say. It’d happened months ago, she realized. It had been brewing for months, maybe since that morning back in the winter when he’d found her crying and hadn’t asked her any questions or lectured her on the mistakes she’d made. It might have been that afternoon in his office when he couldn’t stop sneezing from the peppermint she put in his paper flower or that night in her apartment when she had taken the plunge and kissed him.

It didn’t matter when it had happened. It was there, clear as day, clear as his blue eyes looking into hers.

She loved him.

And because she loved him, she couldn’t do this to him. She couldn’t do what Ruby had done to her.

For one long moment he said nothing and Meg wished with all her might that he wouldn’t insist. She wasn’t sure she’d be strong enough to say no to him again if he insisted.

“I want to help you, though,” he said. “I don’t want you to be in pain. Tell me how I can help you.”

“You’ve done so much already.” Meg chuckled softly. “But can we…? No, forget it. It’s dumb.”

“What?” Castiel frowned. “What is it, Meg? You can ask anything.”

Meg took a deep breath and used what was left of her self-control not to ask what she really wanted.

“Can we sleep in the same bed? Can we cuddle?”

Castiel’s lips twitches as if he was holding back a smile.

“Yes, of course.”

 

* * *

 

She slept like a log.

She had thought that without the drinks or without the pills, she wouldn’t be able to close her eyes, but as soon as Castiel wrapped her in his arms and she pressed her face against his gray shirt, she fell sound asleep.

The next morning, she woke up when the sun had barely come up and she wanted to cry, though not for the same reasons she had cried the day before. Castiel’s face rested in the pillow, just inches away from hers. His cheeks were darkened by his stubble and his chest raised up and down peacefully, every one of his breath punctuated by a snore that sort of sounded like a purr. He looked peaceful, calm in a way she’d never seen when he was awake. All the worries he carried in the edge of his mouth, in the furrow between his eyebrows, were gone.

She already knew that April was a complete and utter bitch, but as she stared at Castiel’s face that morning, Meg truly felt like she hated her. She hated anyone who had ever or who would ever hurt him.

And that included herself.

She moved ever so slightly to get more comfortable, but that was enough to wake him up. Castiel’s eyes fluttered open and stared back at her in silence. He moved his hand to brush aside a lock of her hair from her face, but other than that, he didn’t move. Meg didn’t dare to ask what he was thinking. She didn’t dare to burst this bubble. She felt at peace there, in his warm embrace, with their legs tangled up.

She felt _safe_.

She didn’t know how long they remained there. Eventually, Castiel’s alarm went off, jarring and loud. He sat up and turned it off.

“We have to get up,” he muttered, rubbing his eyes. “If we want to be home by nightfall…”

“Okay,” Meg said, even though there was nothing in the universe she wanted less than to move from that bed.

The trip back was quiet, compared to what had been the first part of the journey. They still held hands for most of it and every once in a while they commented on something weird they saw at the edge of the road or when they had a random thought, but their sporadic conversations didn’t last very long. They laughed a lot less, that was for sure. They were both entirely too lost in their own minds.

It wasn’t until they were crossing their state line, with the sun setting in the horizon, that Meg dared to ask the question that had been plaguing her for a while:

“So what now?”

Castiel took his damn sweet time to think of an answer.

“I don’t know, Meg. I want to be with you. I know I’m not the kind of person you would usually go for…”

“You’re right, you’re not,” she interrupted him. “But then again, every other person I have ever been with has either left me or been asshole to me. So maybe you’re not the problem.”

Castiel said nothing. He parked in front of Meg’s building, but he didn’t let go of her hand immediately.

“Meg…”

“I’m not… ready for this,” she said. “It’s like everything I feel for you it’s too much and I don’t know how to really handle it.”

“I… I understand, but…”

“Will you wait for me, though?” she cut him off. “Will you wait until I’m better?”

Castiel’s eyes grew wider, his mouth slightly parted as if he was surprised. As if he hadn’t thought she would ever asked something like that.

“Yes,” he said. “Of course. You’re worth waiting an eternity, Meg.”

She chuckled. How did he always manage to say the right thing? She grabbed him by the cheeks and pulled him for a quick, soft kiss. A kiss that was a reassurance as much as it was a promise.

“I’ll see you tomorrow.”

Her heart pounded fast while she climbed the stairs to her apartment, and once she closed the door behind her, she didn’t know what to do with herself. Her cellphone was out of battery, so she plugged it in and paced around her living room, smoking cigarette after cigarette. The presence of the whiskey bottle she had always hidden in the cabinet haunted her, but she resisted the urge to take it out and empty it in one gulp`.

If she did that, all her good intentions, all her promises, would go straight to hell and she hated the idea of disappointing him.

Finally, she had enough battery so that she could make the call and keep walking around the apartment without the damn thing dying on her.

“Hello?” Benny’s voice sounded hoarse, as if she’d just woke him up.

Meg looked at the clock on her wall. When had it become midnight? It didn’t matter. She’d already wake him up, so she might as well say her piece.

“Therapy is bullshit,” she declared.

“What… Meg?”

“After my dad died, my mom sent to half a dozen different therapists and a psych ward, and none of them was able to help me,” she continued. “Every single thing they told me to do, every pill they gave to me, nothing worked. I still kept on feeling like I was a worthless piece of shit and everything I did was pointless. But it’s not like I didn’t want to get better, okay?”

“… okay,” Benny said. He sounded more awake this time.

“I just… I ended up feeling like I never could, so why even try?” She sat down on her couch and lit on another cigarette, the sixth in maybe fifteen minutes? “And at the same time, it’s like… I had no right to feel as shitty as I did. I came from a good family. I had everything I could ever want. Even now, when I’ve fucked everything, I feel like it’s all my fault for not trying harder and I just… I don’t deserve the things I want, you know?”

“I think…”

“But I want to deserve them,” Meg interrupted before he could continue. “I want to get better. I thought if I just… isolated myself or surrounded myself with other equally shitty people, then it didn’t matter, but that didn’t work. And now I don’t want the people in my life to hate me. I don’t want them to stand around spreading my ashes and being angry with me because of what I put them through. I don’t want to be Ruby.”

Benny waited to speak until he was sure Meg wasn’t going to keep on babbling.

“Very well,” he said.

“I have no idea how to start, though.” She took a long drag of her cigarette and blew out the smoke very slowly. She didn’t want to start crying again. “So how do I do this? How do I start?”

“Meg, you’ve already started.”


	11. November

“… after my fiancée walked away from me, I became even more reckless. I knew, on some level, that the drugs would kill me but it was as if I just could find it in me to care about that. So as it was only a matter of time, I had an overdose soon after. I don’t remember anything about that night. I know my brother found me and he called 911. He had dropped by my place to check on me because he was worried, and I can’t help but to think that if I had pushed him away just like I pushed everyone else away…”

Sam made a pause and shook his head.

“No. The truth is, I did try to push Dean away, but he just… he wouldn’t give up on me. That morning, when I woke up in the hospital, we had a long, heartfelt chat. It was… not a thing we used to do. We grew with an ex-marine dad that never found a healthy way to express his emotions, so we had to figure out another way to talk about the things that hurt us. More than anything, it pained me to find out that my addiction had been making Dean’s alcoholism worse. So that morning, we made whatever the opposite of a suicide pact is. A lifeline pact, I suppose. We promised that we would save each other and that we would stay alive no matter what.”

He stopped again and took a deep breath. His eyes were red, as if he could barely contain the tears, but his voice was still firm when he spoke:

“So here I am today, clean and sober for three years, eight months and two days.”

The people congregated around the church’s basement erupted in applause. The sudden sound startled Meg, who up until that point had been too immersed in Sam’s story to remember where she was. She had gathered bits and pieces of it from talking to Sam and hearing him speak at the meetings, but it was a different thing to have a full picture. She supposed she now knew why he and Dean were practically attached at the hip.

“Here’s my takeaway for you if you’re just starting your path to recovery,” Sam continued after the clapping died down. “Remember that there are people in your life for whom you matter, people who care for you. Even if you have pushed them away, even if you think that you have hurt them too much for them to forgive you, it’s still possible to make amends with them. The best apology is a changed behavior. And no matter what you’re going through, you’re not alone. You are never alone.”

The group clapped once again. Meg joined in this time. She had heard other people saying things along the same lines, but somehow when Sam had said them, they sounded more sincere. Like he truly believed in them.

Pastor Jim stood up and gave Sam a pat in the back before letting him return to his seat.

“Alright, anyone else wants to share tonight?” the priest asked, his eyes scanning the dozen or so people gathered there. Meg tried to sink in her chair, but perhaps she would’ve been better if she had stayed very still, because apparently the movement made Pastor Jim noticed her: “Meg, how about you? Do you feel like sharing?”

“Not particularly,” Meg said. Some of the other attendants to the meeting chuckled, while others glared at her. She had discovered that her particular brand of sense of humor wasn’t exactly universally loved.

Pastor Jim’s eyes kept locked on her, so with a sigh, Meg stood up and walked up to the front of the circle.

“Hello, my name is Meg and I’m an alcoholic,” she stated. The applause she received for stating that wasn’t as warm as the one Sam had gotten, but she didn’t expect it to be. She was never good at being the new person around, so she just went ahead and kept on speaking: “I have been sober for twenty three days. One more week and I’m going to earn one of those purple chips. Really looking forwards to that. But, uh… yeah, one day at a time and all that.”

There were no laughs at her attempt at humor. She ran her fingers through her hair and carried on anyway.

“I’m trying to take it easy, but I still sometimes get these cravings, you know? I find myself looking for my booze and then remembering why I don’t have it any more.”

That had been one of the hardest parts of all this process. Donna, Benny, and Sam had showed up at her apartment with garbage bags and had carefully and systematically scanned the whole place, emptying all the alcohol they found in the sink as they found them. Meg had cringed with horror at first (did they had any idea how expensive some of that liquor was?) and then with embarrassment as they lined up the bottles on the kitchen island.

She hadn’t realized she had so many. She hadn’t realized she always bought a new bottle or a six pack whenever she went to do her groceries, even if she hadn’t finished the previous one. It was as if she had been scared of running out of alcohol and she’d had to stash as much as she could. It was like confronting concrete, tangible proof of the extent and depth of her addiction.

“Meg, remember we’re not here to judge you,” Benny had said when she stood there, with her arms crossed over her chest defensively. “Do you have any other substances in the house?”

Meg had bitten the inside of her cheeks. Her first impulse was to lie and say no, because, goddammit, they were already taking away all the alcohol, how was she supposed to sleep now? But after taking a few deep breaths and getting the worst part of her under control, she told the truth:

“I have some… pills in the bathroom.”

Benny had come along with her, but rather than getting rid of himself, he had given them to Meg and instructed her to throw them in the toilet and flush them down. She’d toyed with the orange tube in her hand, as if she couldn’t quite bring herself to do it, but in the end, she’d uncapped it and done as Benny had told him.

She’d felt a small of satisfaction as the pills disappeared down the drain. As if she’d won a fight of some kind that she didn’t know she’d been fighting.

“But… I’m hanging in there,” Meg told the congregation of alcoholics listening to her rambling. “A friend recently told me that recovery isn’t a straight path…”

“… there will be setbacks. There will be bad days,” Benny had told her, sitting on the couch next to her after Donna and Sam had taken out the trash bags with all her booze away. “You need to remember to forgive yourself for those and keep going.”

“So far I haven’t had any particularly shitty days,” Meg admitted. “I’m seeing a new therapist, and even though all my other therapists have been a bunch of idiots… I don’t know. I think this guy gets it.”

She had been reluctant to see anybody new, but Benny had said he couldn’t treat her because they saw each other often at the shelter. He’d recommended her to a colleague and Meg had been very reluctant when the short, blonde guy walked into the office with a lollipop stick poking out of his mouth.

“Hello, I’m Doctor Gabriel Richardson, but you can call me Gabe,” he’d greeted her as he positioned himself in the armchair in front of her. “You must be Meg.”

“Must I be?”

“Ha, sense of humor. I like that.” Gabriel had smiled and pulled up a notebook. “So Meg, why are you here today?”

“I have an acute case of being a general failure at life and I was hoping you’d tell me how to stop,” Meg had replied.

She’d always made her opening statements to new therapists as aggressive as possible to test their reactions. Some of them took notes, some of them leaned forwards and told her that she couldn’t talk about herself like that.

Not Gabriel, though. He’d simply nodded and stood up.

“Well, I have a tool that might be able to help us with that,” he’d said as he opened a drawer in his desk.

Meg was expecting him to come back with a stack of papers and some tests that she was going to have to take in order to get yet another diagnosis for what was wrong with her brain, but instead, Gabriel had taken out something truly unexpected.

“Is that a nerf gun?” she’d asked, confused as Gabriel once again sat in front of her.

“Indeed, it is,” he’d answered, not bothering to explain the purpose of it. "Continue."

Meg had squinted her eyes at him with suspicion, but she did:

"Well, you know... I'm just here because I'm a drunk and an idiot and..."

Something had struck her on the knee and she'd gasped. Gabriel held the nerf gun up, one of his eyebrows arched as he observed her silently. Meg had rubbed the spot where the dart had hit her.

"What's that supposed to accomplish?"

"Oh, this is a very powerful cognitive behavior therapy tool. I think you'll find that it accomplishes a lot." Gabriel had smirked at her as if he'd just told a very funny joke. "So, why are you here, Meg?"

Meg had taken a deep breath and started again:

"I need some help."

"We all do from time to time." Gabriel had nodded.

He'd shot a dart at her every time Meg started to talk badly about herself. She found it was far more effective than the whole trying to change the course of her thoughts that her previous therapists had suggested. It was as if Gabriel was capable of seeing right through her bullshit and refused to let her get away with it.

"... I guess what I'm most scared of at the moment is that in a couple of weeks, I'm going to visit my family for Thanksgiving," Meg concluded in front of the meeting. "I don't know how they're going to take my recovery. I think that they never really believed that I had a problem and to be fair, until recently, I didn't either."

She stopped and looked up at the faces staring back at her from the plastic chairs. Most of them were clearly bored to death by her rambling, except for Sam, who nodded along to everything she was saying.

"That's not true," Meg corrected herself. "I knew something wasn't right with me. I simply... refused to believe it affected anyone but myself. And now I don't know if they're going to care about everything I'm doing to get better. But even if they don't, ultimately I have to remember I'm doing this for myself. I deserve to get better. I deserve to be alive and healthy. I just gotta... keep saying that until I start actually believing it, right?"

There were some chuckles from her audience. So maybe they had been listening to her after all.

"Anyway. That's all I have to share for now."

There was another round of applause and Pastor Jim thanked her and sent her back to her seat.

After the meeting, Meg stuck around and helped dispose of the empty plastic cups and pile up the chairs along with Sam. It wasn't really her turn, but she had discovered that staying busy helped to keep her mind away from unpleasant thoughts.

“So you’re not going to be in town for Thanksgiving?”

Meg was glad that was the thing that Sam had chosen to focus on instead of trying to get her to open up about her family and how terrible they were.

“No. Lilith basically gave me no choice,” she said. “I guess she wants to see how the exile is suiting me.”

“That’s a shame,” Sam replied. “You’re going to miss out on Missouri’s turkey. I don’t know how, but every year she manages to outdo herself.”

Meg sighed. That sounded like a much better Thanksgiving plan, if she was being honest: just spending times with the people from the shelter, eating until she was just as stuffed as the turkey, forgetting there was world outside of that place, a world that didn’t seem as warm and forgiving.

But she couldn’t ignore Lilith’s calls forever. She had, after all, given her money all throughout this year and asked very little about what she was doing with it. Even though she had never been the most supportive person, Meg still owed her telling her what was going on with her life.

The person she dreaded seeing the most wasn’t her mother, however.

“Hey, Sam,” she called as they finished putting away the chairs. “Did you and Dean ever have a horrible fight?”

Sam thought about it as they put on their coats and climbed the stairs outside the church’s basement.

“I mean, yeah, we still fight a lot all the time…”

“That’s not what I asked,” Meg pointed out. “I mean, a fight where you both said things that you didn’t think you could come back from. Did you ever, like… wreck his car and he was so furious with you he basically swore never to speak to you again?”

She knew she was getting too specific about this. Sam threw her a weird look, but again, he passed on commenting on it.

“Yes, plenty of times,” he admitted. “Especially when I was at my worst. There were moments when I thought Dean would just outright hate me and never want to see me again. But he never abandoned me.”

They stopped in the corner where they usually went their separate ways, but neither of them moved. The conversation wasn’t over yet and Meg silently thanked Sam for not going away just yet. She lit a cigarette and took a deep, slow drag to chase away the cold. The winter had arrived early in the city, with plenty of rain and freezing winds.

“But you and him are different,” she said. “You said your mom died and your dad wasn’t around a lot. You only had each other, growing up. Tom and I were never that close to begin with and after what I did…”

“Did you ever apologize to him?”

The question caught her so off-guard that she forgot to exhale the smoke she had just breathed in. She looked up at Sam, as if she couldn’t process the words he’d just said.

“I… I said I was sorry…”

“Did you mean it?” Sam insisted. “Or did you just say it just so Tom would leave you alone when you had other things to be worried about?”

Meg was starting to suspect this guy was psychic too.

“Okay, judging by those standards, maybe I… I didn’t exactly apologize to him,” she confessed. “But do I have to? You said it yourself, the best apology is a changed behavior, so…”

“Maybe he’d like to hear it regardless.”

Meg took another drag, pensively.

“I don’t… have a lot of practice with apologies.”

“Just don’t make excuses for yourself, Meg. Yes, you were in a bad place at the time and you’re trying to get better now, but it wasn’t the alcohol or your mental illness that made you do those things. You chose to do them. And you have to make amends for them.”

Meg opened her mouth and blew a ring of smoke directly into Sam’s face.

“I hate that.”

“Yeah.” Sam chuckled. “Everyone does.”

 

* * *

 

“… I was about to come out there with my shotgun,” Ellen said. “But you know, before I could, Jo told him she never wanted to see him again and kicked him out of the house.”

“Oh, that must have hurt,” Jody said, shaking her head.

Meg tried not to laugh at the image of Ellen charging in the middle of a fight between Jo and Adam brandishing a shotgun. She failed and had to pretend that she was choking on her tea.

“So is it over?” Patience asked. “Really, really over?”

“Apparently.” Ellen sighed. “It’s a shame. I liked this one, but it seems like not everything that glitters is gold.”

The drama of the slow falling out of Jo and Adam’s relationship had been the main topic of conversation for several nights in a row. It had apparently started when Adam refused to take Jo to meet his mother and step-dad for Thanksgiving, even though he’d had dinner plenty of times in the Harvelle household. It had then transcended that Adam sort of… had another girlfriend back in his hometown that his parents had already met. According to the excuses he had given to Jo (which Ellen was privy to, because they’d fought about it in her living room) he was in the process of breaking up with that other girl but it’d just never… come to happen.

So it wasn’t so much that he’d cheated on Jo, it was that Jo was the person he was cheating with. Meg figured it was a case of a small town boy being blinded by the girl in the city and not being able to be upfront about it to his high school sweetheart, but she’d be damned if she was going to offer anything that resembled an explanation or an excuse for him. She’d be kicked out of the tea drinking circle for sure.

“I feel guilty,” Charlie commented. “I introduced Jo to this ass and pushed her into dating him. I was like, _‘Honey, you need to put yourself out there. You need to give yourself a chance to get over Dean’_.”

“Speaking of, does Dean know about this?” Alicia asked.

“In other words, is the bet still going?” Claire added.

“Did it ever stop?” Meg asked. Claire, Patience and Alicia laughed, but the older women gave them strange looks.

“I’m not gonna let you have my daughter’s personal life as entertainment,” Ellen said, sternly. “And also, no, I don’t think Dean knows yet. And none of you are going to tell him, do you hear me? If he wants to find out, he can ask her himself.”

Meg gave it exactly twenty-four hours before Dean found out that Jo had broken up with her boyfriend. There just weren’t many things that could stay hidden in St. Michael’s.

Castiel popped his head inside of the kitchen.

“Meg, are you ready to go?”

Missouri practically jumped from her chair and marched up to him.

“I’ve been meaning to have a word with you, boy,” she said.

Castiel stood up straight, blinking at Missouri with pure fear in his eyes. Meg couldn’t really blame him.

“What… what is it?”

“What is this budget that you’ve given me for the turkeys?” Missouri asked, putting her hands on her hips and staring right at him with pure fire in her eyes. “How am I supposed to make a decent Thanksgiving dinner for like a hundred people with so little money? Do you think I’m a witch? Do you have any idea how many others are going to show up here than they usually do on that night?”

“No, Missouri,” Castiel said, lowering his eyes. “I really wish I had more to give you, but it’s just… I have to prioritize the fixing of the heater before winter comes and we need new blankets for some of the beds. I’m sorry.”

Missouri’s anger disappeared as quickly as it had showed up. She scoffed and shook her head.

“Castiel, you could have said so sooner.”

Castiel lowered his head and Meg once more felt a burning, angry sensation in the pit of her stomach. She hated that he wanted to help others so badly and that he didn't the resources to do it. She hated that this was causing him stress and that he couldn't just tell others how much he was doing…

Claire, Patience and Alexis exchanged a look. The three of them stood up and Alexis headed to the diner.

"So, we weren't going to say anything for a while," Claire started.

"But it seems that you might need it now," Patience said.

Castiel knitted his brow together, confused.

"What are you girls talking about?"

"The Art School from my college always puts together a Halloween haunted house and they donate the proceedings to a charitable cause," Patience explained. "We asked that this time the beneficiary would be St. Michael's."

“We were waiting for next month to give it you, for your birthday,” Claire continued. “We thought you might want to use it for the Christmas night. You know, when we’re going to need all the toys and the other shit ready.”

Alexis returned to the kitchen, carrying a fat manila envelope.

“It’s not much,” she said. “Just a couple thousand dollars. I mean, we know is not nearly enough to keep the shelter up and running, but it should cover the Thanksgiving dinner, right?”

Castiel’s eyes grew wider and he stared at the manila envelope, as if he couldn’t quite believe what it was that he was holding.

“Girls, you… I can’t believe you did this,” he said, and turned his eyes at the rest of the women in the kitchen.

“Don’t look at us,” Jody said, who seemed as delightfully surprised as Castiel. “We had no idea what they were up to.”

“But that’s amazing!” Alicia exclaimed. “You should have said something, girls. We would’ve pitched in too!”

“Yeah, well, we wanted to get all the credit,” Claire said with her usual nonchalant attitude and a shrug. But Meg could see in the way her eyes were shining that she was pleased.

Castiel looked down at the envelope and covered his mouth with his hand for a moment, as if he had to hold back the tears.

“I can’t tell you how much I appreciate this…”

“But I think you girls had the right idea,” Missouri intervened. “You should save that money for Christmas.”

“Are you sure, Missouri?” Castiel asked. “What about your turkeys?”

“Jesus managed to feed a crowd with five loaves of bread and two fish. I can manage too,” Missouri replied, raising her chin proudly.

“Grams, you’re not Jesus,” Patience said, chuckling.

“As far as you know, girl, I might be,” Missouri replied.

That caused another round of laughter around the kitchen. Castiel held unto the manilla envelope, as if it was a God sent gift.

"Thank you, girls. You really don't know how much this means to me."

"Now, don't be getting all sentimental on us," Alexis said. "Go put that under lock and key until Christmas."

Castiel gave a hug to each one of them and went to do exactly what they had told him to. Meg waited for him outside of the shelter, with a cigarette between her lips. Since she'd quit drinking, she'd find that she was smoking a lot more. That night, however, she toyed with it between her fingers without quite turning it on. Despite the cold, she still felt pretty warm inside and even more so when Castiel joined her, quickly wiping his eyes with his jacket's sleeve.

"Are you crying?" Meg asked him with a giggle.

Any other man in the world might have denied it. Not Castiel, though.

"A bit, yes," he confessed as they got on their way to the subway station like every night. "I was not... I truly wasn't expecting that. The girls were so generous with me, I didn't think..."

"Cas, come on," Meg said, shaking her head. "Of course they were willing to do that. I'm sure every single person in that shelter would do anything for you if you asked them."

"They do so much already," Castiel said with a soft smile in his lips. "I couldn't possibly ask any more of them."

Meg was going to insist that he had no idea how much everybody loved him and how highly they thought of him, but she desisted. She had the feeling Castiel knew it already, even if his humbleness would never let him admit it. So she changed the topic.

"What was that thing that Alexis said about your birthday? You never told me when that was."

"Oh." He laughed and scratched the back of his head. "It's in December, yes."

"Nice. Are you planning on doing something for it or are just going to do what I did and just pretend that you care for that kind of thing?"

Castiel laughed again as he walked down the stairs with her.

"I don't usually do much for my birthday," Castiel said. "People are always busy or they prefer to be elsewhere."

"Seriously? You're going to go with that?" Meg said, rolling her eyes. "Come on, you can't possibly mean that. You're the best guy in the world, everybody should be happy you were born."

"I'm sure they are. It's just there are more important things to celebrate than my birthday."

Meg narrowed her eyes at him.

"Okay, I'll bite," she decided in the end. "When exactly is your birthday?"

"The twenty-fifth."

She stared incredulously at him, speechless.

"You were born on Christmas?" she asked, not knowing whether laughing about this was appropriate or not.

"As a child I always resented the fact that everyone else also got a present on my birthday. Growing up, I lied about the date and had it be a day later," he said. "But I made my peace with the fact that my birthday is just not going to be a big deal for everyone."

"Not a big...? Goddammit." Meg pinched the bridge of her nose. She loved Castiel, she really did, but there was a point when his modesty stopped being endearing. "Of course it's a big deal! I'm starting to think maybe Missouri isn't Jesus, but you might be."

That got him to laugh one more time.

"No, I am most definitely not," he said.

"Well, but you are the closest thing I have ever met to an actual angel," she told him. "You literally are Clarence."

"I still don't know who Clarence is," he pointed out.

"Clarence Oddbody? From A Wonderful Life?" Meg said.

Castiel's expression remained as blank as before.

"You've... you seriously are going to tell me you never watched that movie? It's a Christmas classic!"

"Well, I spent half of my life resenting Christmas and the other half working," Castiel explained. "I never had time to watch Christmas movies. I've... heard about it, though."

"No. Not good enough." Meg shook her head. "There are some serious gaps in your pop culture knowledge that we need to start filling up immediately. I'm going to make you watch it if I have to drag you away from the shelter myself."

As always, it had been easy, too easy, to forget about the fact that they weren't actually... well, anything. They were friends, Meg supposed. They had been friends for a while. But friends didn't look at each other this way, they didn't go quiet when one of them suggested watching a movie together, and they definitely didn't stand on the subway platform thinking so intensely about kissing each other.

Because that was exactly what Meg was thinking when she stood there, looking at Castiel's lips so close to her, ignoring the people who came and went around them. He was the only one that truly mattered anyway.

"Is that... are you... are you asking me on a date again?" he asked, lowering his voice slightly.

The people at the meetings had told her it was a bad idea. She was only just starting her path to recovery. She was still in a very vulnerable place, she should wait at least some months until she was sure she wasn't going to have a bad relapse any time soon. Gabriel had told her the same thing: she should be using this time to focus on herself. She couldn't handle the uncertainty and turmoil of starting a relationship, dating someone and trying to find if they were right for each other and all those things that Meg supposed people who dated normally did.

And Castiel had promised that he would wait for her.

He seemed to realize what she was thinking even before she said it out loud, because he lowered his eyes.

"I'm sorry. I shouldn't be pressing the issue. Of course, you're not ready yet and..."

Meg grabbed his hand and stood on the tip of her toes. Castiel was caught by surprised when her lips crashed into his, but he immediately leaned into her and kissed her back.

The thing was, nothing about being with Castiel felt uncertain or like a turmoil. Whenever she was with him, she didn't feel like she was agitated or trying to guess what he was thinking about or how this was going to work or any other questions she might have with anyone else.

No. When she was with Castiel, whether they were talking or working or just standing next to each other, was the only times when the hurricane in her head went quiet and all her thoughts were at ease. She felt grounded around him. She felt like everything she was trying to do, everything she was working towards, was worth it just for the possibility of being there with him.

She broke away, taking in his breathing with her.

"If you want it to be."

The train stopped in front of them.

Castiel didn't say anything, but he only let go of her hand when the train's door threatened to close on them. Meg smiled at him until the platform disappeared around the window.

Only then she turned around to look for a seat.

It was an odd thing. Her train always seemed to come before his did.

 

* * *

 

She definitely didn't like travelling by bus, but since couldn't drive and she didn't want to bother anyone else on Thanksgiving, she had no other choice. She found a seat next to the window and pressed her forehead against it, with her earphones plugged in her ears for the two hours the journey would last. It was a grey, ugly Thursday morning, and by the time the bus parked in front of the bus station, it was drizzling. Meg hanged her overnight bag on her shoulder and descended with the rest of the passengers.

She was expecting that she would have to take a cab or walk the distance that separated the stop to her mother's house, but to her surprise, she found a familiar face waiting for her. She stopped on her tracks, but she reminded herself she was going to win nothing by avoiding it.

He was wearing jeans and a jacket that seemed a little too thin for this weather, but he seemed unaffected by the cold. His dark brown hair, just like hers before she bleached it, was shorter than usual and he had let a soft fuzz grow over his cheeks. He either hadn't care to shave that morning or he was trying once again to grow a beard.

"Hello, Tom," she greeted him.

"Meg," her brother said, curtly.

He grabbed her bag for her and walked with her to his car. Not the same one her and Ruby had crashed, of course, that one had been unsalvageable. Tom was taciturn and avoiding her glance, but at least he hadn't screamed at her.

Not yet, anyway.

Meg decided to leave the heavy talk she had to had with him for later and tried to convince herself she was doing it for the sake of keeping the peace during the holiday and not because she was a coward.

"So how's mom?" she asked.

"I don't know," Tom said, shrugging as they took to the streets. "I got here five minutes ago and she sent me to wait for you. She probably wanted to interrogate my girlfriend in peace."

"Oh. You have a girlfriend?" Meg asked, a little surprised. Tom was a workaholic shop-owner that never seemed to have time for trifle things, such as personal relationships of any kind.

"Yes, I have a girlfriend," he said, without offering her name or any other detail about her. "And I would appreciate it a lot if you didn't make a spectacle of yourself in front of her."

Meg bit her tongue. She wanted to tell him he had no idea what he was saying, that she had been sober for over month at this point and she had the chip to prove it. She had brought it along to remind herself of the progress she didn't want to throw away and that his attitude towards her really wasn't going to help her much.

But she remembered that he had reasons to be mad at her and decided to keep on the subject of the girlfriend.

"How long have you been seeing her?"

"Six months," Tom answered, with what sounded like a growl.

"What's her name? What does she do?"

"Hael. She's an accountant. Why are you asking all of this?"

"'Cause you're my brother and I care?" Meg tried to say.

Tom let out a sound that was halfway between a scoff and a skeptical laughter. Meg decided to stop trying and just pressed her face against the window again. This was going to be a long day.

The house, of course, looked as impeccable as always: the beige walls, the crystal chandelier on the living room, even the artificial scent of vanilla floating in the air. Meg remembered to take off her shoes so that she wouldn't stain the white carpet before she could move to the kitchen.

"... and do you enjoy your job?"

"Oh, yes, very much. I mean, I met Tom doing his taxes for the shop, so I can't complain."

"I see. And do you often meet men through your job?"

Meg was almost tempted to wait around in the kitchen doorway before she walked in, but she figured it was best to give Lilith a different person to complain about so poor Hael could catch a break.

Lilith looked just as immaculate as her house, with her blonde hair curled up around her face and her plaid apron that, despite her being cooking, didn't have a single stain.

"Hello, mother," Meg greeted her.

Lilith stopped chopping the tomatoes and looked up at her.

"Meg, darling!" she exclaimed as if she hadn't ordered her there. She walked up to her and geve her two noisy kisses, each in one cheek. She then stepped away and looked at her up and down. "You look good. Though, I think you have gained some weight?" she added, pinching her cheek.

Meg sank her hand in her jacket pocket and toyed with her sobriety chip to keep calm.

"Yes. Maybe a little," she said, forcing out a smile.

She wasn't about to tell her that it was a good thing she had gained weight. She had gained weight because she was actually eating. She still hadn't reached the stage of cooking herself a meal every day, but she was accepting the leftover food that Missouri gave to her and she was actually making sure to have something besides black coffee for breakfast because eating healthily - Gabriel had told her this - was actually part of getting her brain unfucked.

If Lilith expected her an apology or an excuse for her appearance, she had another thing coming.

Lilith decided to leave the comment there.

"Well, come in," she told her. "Meet Hael. She's Tom's girlfriend."

"Yeah, he told me about you," Meg said, and somehow she made it sound like she and Tom were in speaking terms. “Nice to meet you.”

Hael was a short, brunette girl. She smiled wide at Meg and asked how she was. Meg found her a little too dull, especially compared to all of Tom’s previous girlfriends, but her presence in the house was a bit of a blessing: Lilith was too busy interrogating her to keep harping on Meg about her life.

“So do you have any siblings? And what did they do? Where did they go to college?”

Hael answered all the questions while she patiently prepared the gravy and stuffed the turkey with it. Meg was a second away from asking why Tom and Crowley weren’t helping them out as well, but at the last second she desisted. Questions like that had got her in trouble before. This was her mother’s house and Lilith liked things done a certain way. Gabriel had told her she needed to pick her battles, so she kept quiet and helped around until Lilith sent her to set the table.

“Darling, I gotta say, you’re being remarkably agreeable,” Lilith pointed out at some point where Hael left them alone to tell the men dinner was ready. She sounded surprised, as if she expected Meg to come out of the gate and fight her on something.

“Well, it’s the holidays,” Meg said, shrugging.

Lilith seemed delighted with that answer.

“They are, indeed!” she replied. “We should celebrate.”

And then she did exactly what Meg feared the most that she would do: she opened the cabinet and took out a bottle of red wine.

“Mother. Mom,” Meg said as Lilith took out two tall glasses as well. “I can’t… I’m not… drinking anymore.”

Once again she sank her hand in her pocket and touched her chip, as if it was a talisman. Lilith looked at her with incredulity and then she let out a chuckle.

“You? Not drinking? Meg, you’ve been sneaking into my liquor cabinet since you were twelve.”

“Yes, and did it ever occurred to you that wasn’t the healthiest thing?” Meg replied.

 _Deep breaths_ , Gabriel voice sounded in her head. _There’s no point in trying to start a fight. Explain to her what you’re going through and what you’re trying to do_.

Meg took out her sobriety chip and held it up for Lilith to see.

“I’ve been sober for thirty-four days. I’m trying to stay that way.”

Lilith kept staring at her, stunned. After a moment, she tilted her head to the side with her eyebrows raised.

“Alright, suit yourself,” she said, putting away only one of the glasses.

Meg knew right away that she was still going to open the bottle and pour herself one, so she made up an excuse and returned to the dining room, where Tom and Hael were speaking in soft whispers.

“I hope she’s not making you uncomfortable.”

“It’s nothing I can’t handle, don’t worry,” Hael said. They both turned to look at Meg as soon as she walked in. “Oh, Meg. Is dinner ready?”

Meg forced herself to smile. “It will be, soon.”

She wished that moment never came, though.

Crowley came downstairs from his studio wrapped up in a red silk robe, holding a glass of whiskey in his hand.

“Hello, Meg,” he greeted her, his Scottish accent exacerbated by all the alcohol he had already ingested. “It’s been a while.”

Meg didn’t answer. She was trying not to breathe too much. She hadn’t realized she would be able to _smell_ the whiskey, and that her hands would start trembling and her mouth would go dry…

She sat as far away from Crowley and Lilith as she could and drank a glass of water every time she felt overwhelmed. She singlehandedly finished an entire jar and she wasn’t even halfway into the turkey. Hael and Lilith kept the conversation flowing, with Crowley and Tom giving some input from time to time, so at least for a while, Meg managed to maintain her composure.

But finally Hael noticed how quiet she had been and decided to be polite to her:

“So… what do you do, Meg?”

Silence fell on the table. Meg eyed Tom, but he was looking the other way. Obviously he hadn’t told Hael about Meg’s troubles and she hesitated. Usually she would come out and let her know about what a mess she was, but that was, according to Gabriel, a defense mechanism: she attacked so people would leave her alone.

Castiel had called it “her thorns”.

“I’m… I’m planning to go back to school in the spring,” Meg said. “I took this year off to tend to some of my… health issues.”

She didn’t feel entirely comfortable calling them that. She had been so used to just assume that everything wrong with her was just because she wasn’t strong or smart enough to deal with whatever shit came her away, but Gabriel had said that she needed to start thinking about her mental illness as an actual illness and take the necessary precautions so it wouldn’t interfere with her life the way it had until now. Besides, saying it like that would make people stop asking questions.

And sure enough, Hael muttered “Oh” and kept eating her turkey. Tom side-eyed her and said nothing and even Lilith just poured more wine for herself and kept quiet.

Crowley was too much of an ass to let it be, though.

“Health issues. Sure. Let’s call it that and not being a leeching brat,” he said.

A tense silence fell on the table as Crowley downed another shot of whiskey. Meg wondered how many he had taken and if she had been able to keep up with him.

“Fergus, please,” Lilith muttered. “We were having a nice dinner…”

“And on whose money are you going to ‘go back to school’?” Crowley continued, drawing air quote with his fingers.

Meg repressed the impulse to insult him and instead spoke of the plans she had been making.

“I’ve been looking into community colleges where the tuition isn’t as expensive,” Meg said. “My probation period is going to be up soon. I’ll start looking for a job and…”

“You’re lease is going to be up soon, too, and I hope you don’t think we’re going to renew it,” Crowley interrupted her. “And you? Get a job? Where exactly? You’re a spoiled little girl who hasn’t worked a day in her life.”

Meg lifted her chin. Her blood was boiling in her veins, and she wanted nothing more than to punch her stepfather in the face and steal his whiskey, but she took a deep breath and kept talking as if Crowley had asked those questions in good faith instead of trying to make her the target of his mockery:

“I’m aware it won’t be easy. I appreciate the support, Crowley.”

“We’ve given you enough support over these years,” Crowley said, sardonically. “Do you have any idea how much your little joke cost your mother? How much it cost Tom?”

Tom leaned back on the chair, as if to indicate he wanted to be left out of that conversation, but he didn’t jump to Meg’s defense either.

“I do have an idea, in fact,” Meg said. She turned towards her brother. There was no time like the present, she supposed. “I never did apologize for what I did. I shouldn’t have taken your car without your permission in the first place and even if you had lent it to me, I should have been more careful with it. I was reckless and I caused you a lot of trouble. You had every right to be furious with me. I’m sorry.”

She looked around the table. Hael seemed very uncomfortable, like she wanted the earth to open up and swallow her. Lilith was puffing and drinking more wine, obviously annoyed that her Thanksgiving dinner had suddenly turned so dramatic. Crowley’s lips were tightened on a straight line, as if he was thinking of another thing to say to Meg, but he couldn’t quite think of something. Tom stared at her in silence, his eyes almost popping out of her head.

“And none of you believe me,” Meg concluded softly. “That’s fine. I’ll try to…”

“You think I was mad about _the car_?!” Tom screamed, interrupting her suddenly. “The fucking… _car_?! Holy shit, Meg, did you see how that thing ended up? You could have died!”

“Tom, please, lower your voice,” Lilith requested. “Nothing happened to Meg, so there’s no need to dwell…”

“My little sister could have died and you’re asking me not to dwell on that?” Tom cut her off, banging his fist on the table. “And you were more worried about what your friends would say if she went to jail than about her!”

“That is very unfair, Tom!” Lilith replied, raising her voice just slightly. “I have done everything I could for your sister…”

“Except tell your ass of a husband to keep his ugly mouth shut when he’s insulting her!”

“Don’t speak like that to me, Thomas!” Crowley shot back. “Have you forgotten who lent you the money when your shitty business was about to go under?”

“I wish I’d left it go bankrupt, if I had known you were going to hold that over my head after I already paid you every last penny back!”

The next half hour was… confusing, to put it mildly. Tom and Crowley screamed at each other about money and who had paid what to whom, Lilith intervened now and then to tell them to quiet down, but mostly she just emptied glass after glass of wine at such a rhythm a part of Meg had to be impressed that she hadn’t blacked out yet. Had Lilith always drunk this heavily? How come Meg had never noticed it before?

Meanwhile, Hael sat on her chair with her hand over her lap, looking like she wanted to be anywhere but there. Meg couldn’t blame her. She stretched her hand and gestured with her head towards the glass door that led to the garden.

She wasn’t sure anyone noticed them leaving, but as soon as they were outside all of the screaming and blaming was muffled underneath the door. Meg hugged herself and lit on a cigarette to fight off the cold.

“I’m sorry you had to witness that,” she told Hael.

“I mean… is it… I guess… the holidays make everyone a little nervous,” Hael tried to say.

Meg laughed out loud at that asseveration.

“This? Oh, no, this is a normal Thursday for us.”

The bitter humor she found on that died out soon after, especially when Hael stared at her with outright worry in her clear eyes. Meg knew, on a certain level, that this wasn’t how normal families communicated. She knew it wasn’t normal for someone to start seeing someone else months after their spouse had died of a stroke, like Lilith had done. She knew it wasn’t normal to day drink and talk shit about one another, it wasn’t normal to express one’s concern about the people they loved with explosive anger and it wasn’t fair that poor Hael had walked in there blind.

“Listen… Tom is a good guy, okay? I think of all of us, he’s the most well-adjusted,” Meg told her. “Please don’t break up with him over this.”

Before Hael could answer, Tom opened the door and strode outside of the living room.

“New plan,” he announced. “We’re taking a road trip this weekend. Are you okay with that?”

Hael opened her mouth, she closed it again, and then she laughed.

“Yes, of course.”

“Hey, Tom,” Meg called him. Tom stopped on his tracks and looked at her over her shoulder. “Do you mind driving me to bus station? I don’t think I’m staying the weekend either after all.”

Tom bit the inside of his cheek and lowered his eyes for a moment.

“Yeah, okay. Go get your stuff.”

By the time Meg descended from her bedroom with her bag, Crowley had retreated back into his studio. Lilith sat on the same chair she had been before, staring somberly at the leftovers of the dinner, the bottle of wine almost completely empty by her side. Tom and Hael were already heading to the door, but Meg stopped.

No matter her nagging, no matter how she had failed to help her in the past, Lilith was still her mother. And she still felt a pang of sadness for her.

“Well… goodbye,” she said.

Lilith lifted up her head. Her cheeks were red and her eyes shone brightly with something akin to anger.

“What is this all about, Meg?” she said, with a hoarse voice. “Are you trying to embarrass me? To make me feel guilty?”

Meg resisted the temptation to point out that Tom was leaving too because she… _they_ had made his girlfriend feel very uncomfortable.

“No, mother.”

“You’re not an alcoholic,” Lilith slurred. “This is just another of your attempts to get attention, that’s all. Soon enough you’ll go back to what you’ve always done, and I just hope that you won’t make a fool of yourself again.”

Meg breathed out very slowly. She was starting to think maybe all her previous therapists hadn’t been so useless after all. Maybe whatever they had told Meg just couldn’t compete with the barrage of bullshit she had to listen to in that house.

“I hope the same thing,” she said. “I’ll call you.”

She didn’t say when and Lilith didn’t ask.

The silence inside of Tom’s car was heavy. They drove by houses with golden lights in the window and Meg had to wonder one more time if the people there were having dinner too, if they were fighting or if they were having jovial chats were people weren’t accused of faking their issues.

They stopped by the bus station and Meg stretched her hand to get her bag.

“I truly am sorry this was your first impression of me, Hael,” she said.

“You’re kidding? I think you were the least awful in that dinner.” Hael chuckled. “Take care of yourself, Meg.”

“Right. Bye, Tom.”

She had only taken two steps towards the station when she heard her brother calling her name behind her. Tom ran up to her.

“Is it true?” he asked her. “You’re doing the whole… _‘Hi, I’m an alcoholic’_ thing?”

Meg laughed. It sounded so much like how she had mocked the entire idea months ago when Sam had proposed she went to a meeting with him.

“Yup. Twelve steps and God grant me the serenity. The whole shebang.”

Tom rubbed his face and she waited while he searched for his words.

“Well, shit,” he muttered in the end. He stomped on the ground and walked up and down, more to gain time for what he was about to say than to get warmer. He licked his lips and finally said what was on his mind: “I’m… I’m sorry I pushed you away all these months. I thought…” He took a deep breath and started again: “I was mad at you because… well, because it was like you kept trying to kill yourself and I couldn’t… I couldn’t bear to watch that, Meg. I guess it was… easier to be angry with you than to admit how much it hurt to see you like that.”

Meg looked down at her shoes for a moment. If she’d had a couple of drinks on her, she knew exactly what she would’ve say. She’d yell at him that she had spent all this time thinking the relationship between the two was broken beyond repair and dreading having to see him again and that he was a coward for not sticking around and telling her that. Perhaps she’d realize how much she needed to change before walking in on her dead ex-girlfriend and experienced the exact same anger that Tom was describing now.

But that wasn’t fair. It wasn’t fair to Tom and it wasn’t fair to her. And she was tired of being angry.

“I understand,” she told him. “I wish you’d told me that a little sooner. But I understand. Thank you, Tom.”

There was nothing left to say. Hael was waiting for him in the car. Tom turned around and took two steps away before turning back.

“You know what? We’ll drive you to the city,” he said, grabbing Meg’s bag before she could protest.

“Are you sure?” she asked him, arching an eyebrow.

“Yeah.” Tom nodded and grimaced. “See, the thing is, I’m head over heels for this chick and I want _someone_ from my family to get along with her.”

Meg let out a laughter.

“Well, look at you! Being smitten and shit.”

“Shut up,” Tom snapped.

Meg laughed once more.

It felt good to tease him. It felt good to act as if they were siblings again.

As she climbed back in his car and adjusted the seatbelt, Meg allowed herself that the night hadn’t been a complete disaster after all.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thursday 23rd: Just a heads up, guys, my writing schedule has been altered a little because reasons, so Chapter 12 might not be up tomorrow (Friday 24th), but I'll still try to have it sometime this weekend. Thank you for your patience.
> 
> Update Wednesday 27th: ... so that didn't happen.
> 
> My writing schedule has been modified because I needed to finish a birthday fic for a friend of mine. Give me until September 7th, though, and I will post the last two chapters together as soon as I finish!


	12. December

“Do you think it’ll snow?”

The question came out of nowhere and it didn’t seem to be aimed at anybody in particular. Jo stood next to the window, looking at the heavy grey clouds that hanged over them, the mop she had been using until them forgotten in her hands.

Dean watched her closely from a few steps away.

“Yeah, maybe. Damn global warming, you know? Makes the snow come earlier and earlier each year.”

Jo turned towards him with a little smile. “I really like the snow.”

“Yeah? I always took you more for a summer person,” Dean said. “You know, because you’re always so… sunny.”

“Sunny?” Jo repeated with a chuckle and pull a lock of her golden hair. “You mean because of this? That’s not very original, Dean Winchester.”

“What can I say? Sometimes pretty girls leave me speechless.”

Jo laughed and Meg and Sam exchanged a quick look. They kept cleaning their part of the floor as they weren’t privy to this exchange. It didn’t matter anyway. It was as if Dean and Jo had forgotten they were there.

“So, are you doing something this weekend?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, I still have to buy some presents,” Dean explained. “And I was hoping to get a second opinion on whatever I’m buying, because I always suck at that. And I could appreciate the company while I go shopping. You know, there’s lots of people, lots of queues…”

“Sounds fun. I’d love to go.”

There was a clatter and the thud of someone falling on the floor. When Meg looked up, she realized it was because Dean had stumbled on a bucket. He picked it up quickly and proceeded to lean against the nearest doorway, as if no one (but particularly Jo) had noticed what a complete dork he was.

“Yeah, okay. It’ll be fun. I’ll pick you up.”

“Cool.”

“Do you think if I drink this water I’ll die?” Meg asked Sam, staring down at the murky liquid in the bucket.

“No, but you’ll probably get very sick.”

“It’d still be less painful than having to hear this,” she commented.

Sam chuckled and shook his head. Dean picked up the bucket he’d kicked and went on to fill it with new water. Jo started moping the floor again, until the moment he realized that both Sam and Meg were staring at her.

“What?”

“Was that a date?” Meg inquired point blank. She turned to Sam to request his opinion as well: “Do you think that’s a date?”

“Why do you care?” Jo said.

“Because if it _is_ a date, I owe Charlie thirty dollars.”

Jo chuckled and walked away from them, but Meg could’ve sworn she was blushing as she did so. Which meant she knew it was a date, right?

Or maybe Meg needed to get a new hobby. That was a possibility too.

She was so busy wondering if that was a good idea she almost didn’t notice the way Sam’s shoulders slumped and how he sadly threw the bag of dirty sheets over his shoulder and started walking off towards the stairs. Meg followed him into the basement to the washing machines.

“Hey, you okay?”

“Yeah, why wouldn’t I be okay?” Sam replied, quickly. “Those two had been beating around the bush for ages. Maybe this time Dean will keep his head out of his ass long enough to actually do something about it.”

“That’s nice, but I didn’t ask about Dean. I asked about you.”

Sam sighed and continued loading the washing machine with her in silence for a while. Meg didn’t pressure it, because she had the feeling that Sam did want to talk about it. He just wasn’t quite sure of how to go about it.

“I’m selfish,” he said in the end.

Meg involuntarily burst into laughter, but she quieted it down when Sam glared at her.

“Sam, come on,” she said, rolling her eyes. “You have to be the one of the last selfish persons I have ever known.”

“Yeah? Then why am I annoyed at this?” Sam replied. “I’m… don’t get me wrong, I’m happy that Dean has this chance for having someone in his life. He always said that he couldn’t be tied down and that he didn’t care for long term relationships, but I know deep down he’d always wanted to make that sort of connection. When I was with Jess, he was always saying how happy he was for me and how amazing it must have been to have what we had…”

He interrupted himself. He had been mindless grabbing at the dirty sheets and bundling them up in a mess that was sure to clog the machine. Meg gently helped him untangle them.

“You’re not selfish,” Meg told him. “You’re jealous.”

It was Sam’s turn to laugh incredulously.

“Of what? I don’t like Jo that way.”

“No, but you’d like to have a Jo in your life, if you know what I mean,” Meg explained. “You miss Jess. You still talk about her as if she was the only girl you’re ever going to love that way. You would like to have that again and you’re jealous that Dean might get it. It’s normal.”

Sam stopped what he was doing for a moment, as if he needed to think about it. Then he nodded, as if what Meg had said made sense.

“Maybe,” he admitted. “I don’t know, I just… I hurt her so much…”

“Oh, fucking spare me, Sam,” Meg interrupted him. “I must have heard you tell the story of how Jess left you half a dozen times. You need new material.”

“The meetings aren’t stand-up comedy, Meg,” Sam said, glaring at her.

“I mean, they could be if we weren’t a bunch of alcoholics and junkies feeling sorry for ourselves,” she joked. Sam didn’t laugh, so she continued: “Look, I get it. She was the love of your life. You fucked it up. You need to move on.”

She punctuated her sentence by closing the door of the washing machine.

“It’s easier said than done,” Sam replied. He reached for the soap of the shelf above their heads and passed it to her.

“No, it’s not. You’re tall, you’re good looking. Download a dating app and get yourself back out there.” Meg measured the soap precisely (Castiel’s war economy meant that they couldn’t use more than it was absolutely necessary) and started the washing cycle. “You’re going to have girls wanting to jump your bones in no time.”

Sam leaned against the wall. The whirling and purring of the machines was the only sound they heard for a while.

“It’s not that it would be hard to find someone,” he said. “I’m sure there are so many wonderful girls I could meet.”

“Then what’s the problem?”

“What if I’m not… relationship material?” Sam lowered his eyes. “What if after everything I’ve been through, I’m just too damage to let someone in like that again?”

Meg leaned on the wall next to him. She sighed and ignored his frown when she took out her pack of cigarettes and lit one up.

“Well, that’s a depressing thought.”

“Why?”

“‘Cause if you’re too damaged to have a relationship, what does that leave for me?” Meg asked. She blew a ring of smoke in the air and watched it dissolve.

“What do you mean? I thought you and Cas…”

A sudden rattling interrupted the embarrassing question Sam was about to ask. Both of them instinctively looked at the heater, stepping back. Meg threw her cigarette to the ground and turned it off with her heel. Was that thing about to explode? She didn’t want to be there when that thing exploded. She’d finally started making healthier decisions about her life; she didn’t want to die in a heater related accident…

The rattling came again and this time they both realized it was coming from above them. Meg spotted a single drop forming in the ceiling, hanging and trembling, as if it couldn’t just fall to the ground. By that point, both she and Sam had decided they were not going to stay and find out how all of this ended. They headed for the stairs, but they’d only managed to climb two steps when the disaster occurred.

The sound of collapsing rubble was so loud for a second or two, Meg thought the heater had actually exploded. She jumped against the wall with a startled scream and looked around, but the walls of the basement were still where they were supposed to be.

The ceiling, though, was another story.

Later, they would discover that the cause of it all was a burst pipe. At that moment, all Meg knew was that it was suddenly raining debris and water over them and that the previously dry floor had become an impromptu puddle that was rapidly growing in size and depth.

“Shit,” she muttered.

Sam’s eyes went straight to the still connected and working washing machines and he echoed her exact sentiment:

“Shit!”

What followed was the busiest, craziest day she’d ever had on St. Michael’s. Sam headed for the fuse box despite Meg yelling at him that he was going to get electrocuted and shut down the power of the entire shelter. In two seconds flat, they had people coming out of the kitchen, protesting that they were doing stuff and that the water had suddenly stopped flowing and what the hell was going on?

Meg found Castiel coming out of his office. He took one look at her, and even before she’d explained to him that they didn’t have a basement anymore, he rubbed his temples as if he was having the worst headache of his entire life.

They found old rubber boots and made a beeline over the stairs, passing the water from hand to hand with the buckets that they used to mop the floors. In the meantime, Castiel was talking loudly in his cellphone on the dining room, trying to convince a plumber to get there and take a look at the pipes.

“You don’t understand, we can’t wait until tomorrow! Many people depend on us to have a warm place to sleep and the temperatures are dropping! Yes, I’ll hold. Please, hurry up.”

They kept getting the water out until Charlie asked the question that everybody was thinking but no one dared to say out loud:

“How much do you think fixing this is going to cost?”

“Well, I don’t want to be pessimistic,” Max said. “But I think it’s going to be way off budget for this month.”

“Let’s worry about the task at hand,” Missouri said. “Someone needs to get those sheets out. They’re going to be mildewy.”

Meg thought the sheets were the least of their problems. Even if the bed had fresh sheets, they didn’t have electricity or water, which meant they couldn’t cook that night’s dinner and all the bathrooms would be out of service. But she still helped get them out and extended them all through the tables with Jo and Alicia, as they kept listening to Castiel:

“… I need you to authorize it. It’s an emergency. Naomi, I don’t care…! I want to talk to him. Don’t tell me he’s too busy. Naomi, you better not…”

But Naomi hanged up on him. Castiel stared at his phone with a dismayed expression. Then he signed and dialed and started texting rapidly. He tapped his fingers on the table, impatiently, until his phone chimed in with a reply. Only then he allowed himself to breathe.

“Good news?” Meg asked him.

“Yes. A friend of mine who also has a shelter has agreed to take in the people who would come here tonight,” he said. “She needs someone to bring her extra covers, food and some mattresses, though.”

“I’ll inform the troops,” she offered.

Sam and Dean volunteered to go in Claire’s truck, so in the next half hour, they loaded up everything the other shelter was going to need from them and sent them on their way. Afterwards, there was not much left to do: they helped Missouri cleaned up the remains of her failed dinner and printed out a sign to hang outside announcing that the shelter was going to be closed that night and giving directions to the other one.

“Eileen Leahy is a good woman but she might be flooded by this,” Castiel told the group that gathered around him.

“Huh! Flooded,” Charlie chuckled. No one else celebrated the joke.

“If you want to go home tonight, that’s fine. But in the spirit of St. Michael, I would urge you to go to her shelter and give her some extra hands.” He sighed and looked down at his phone. “I’ll stay here and wait for the plumber.”

There was not much to say after that. They all said goodnight to Castiel and asked him to call them in the morning as soon as he had news. They left in pairs and groups, and Meg heard them commenting they were all headed toward Eileen’s shelter.

She didn’t, though. When she looked over her shoulder, she saw Castiel sitting in the front desk, his head leaned against his hands as if he was about to cry. And suddenly, Meg knew where she was most needed.

He seemed surprised for some reason when she knocked on the door twenty minutes later carrying a carton with two hot coffees and a paper bag with pretzels inside.

“Thought you could use the lunch,” she told him when he threw her an inquiring look.

The same soft smile that always made her heart flutter appeared in his lips.

“Thank you. I was feeling a little hungry.”

They moved one of the humid sheets and sat down together in the diner. Meg had never noticed how dim and kind of creepy it was when no one was there. Usually late at night she just crossed it quickly accompanied by him, and didn’t even think about it. Now she was sitting there, in silence, with only the faint winter light coming in through the window, it looked like the set of an indie horror movie, where the protagonists sat down eating unaware that there was something lurking in the shadows.

The comparison made Castiel laugh.

“You like movies a lot, don’t you?”

“I love them,” Meg stated. “I love how they make stories come to life. They’re like… an orchestra, you know? The director has to set the tone, but everything else also has to come together for it to work, from the actors, to the script, to the sets. And when it does, it’s a little bit like magic.” She stopped and shook her head. “I’m sorry, I must be bothering you to death.”

“Not at all. It’s great to see you regaining your passion for something. Your eyes light up…”

He interrupted himself and took a sip from his coffee.

Meg watched him in silence, wondering how she was supposed to answer to that. In the last few weeks, after she’d kissed him in the subway station, it was as if they’d come to a standstill. They still laughed and walked to the station every night, and of course they spent enough time together in the shelter that the others had automatically assumed they were officially dating.

But other than Castiel holding her hand and making comments like that now and then, he hadn’t told her if he wanted to come watch _It’s a Wonderful Life_ or any other movie for that matter. Or if he wanted to have coffee with her. Or anything else that remotely resembled a date, for that matter. Her time in shelter was coming to an end. She wouldn’t see him as much every day and she had the feeling that if they didn’t define what they were and what they were going to do in the future, then perhaps there wouldn’t be any future for the two of them.

She wasn’t willing to let that happen, so she decided to grab the bull by the horns.

“So are you doing anything later?”

“Well, perhaps after the plumber comes and assess the damages, I could join the others at Eileen’s shelter…”

“When was the last time you had a free day?” she interrupted him.

“October. You were there,” he quipped back.

“That was…” Meg had to stop talking, because she couldn’t really count him dealing with her weeping and emotional neediness as him having a free day. But she knew he was going to say it hadn’t bothered him at all, so she changed the tone of what she was going to say: “That was two months ago, Cas.”

“What is your point, exactly?”

Meg took a deep breath and forced herself to look at his face while she said the next thing.

“My point is, we said we would hang out. And we haven’t. And I don’t know if you’ve been keeping your distance because you don’t want to be with me or what…”

“Meg, no.”

“… but I’d like to know where we’re standing,” she concluded. “Just that.”

Castiel slid his finger over the brim of his coffee cup. He licked his lips and looked at her again:

“You said you weren’t ready,” he pointed out. “And I think it’s too soon… you’re doing such great progress, Meg. I’d hate to stifle that.”

That was a fair point. Meg destroyed her pretzels in silence, thinking about that.

“Okay. It’s like this,” she said in the end. “I want to be with you. But I don’t know how to want things half-measure. It’s like with the alcohol: I want to have all of it at once, and I don’t stop myself until the bottle is empty. So I want to be with you as much as I can, and I want to kiss you and go to be with you and wake up with you every morning. I want to be with you so much sometimes it hurts.”

She stopped. Castiel stared at her, his cheeks burning pink and his lisp parted, as if he didn’t quite know how to respond to everything that she was saying. Meg herself was flustered and surprised that all of this was coming out of her mouth so easily, but she continued anyway:

“And I know that isn’t what I need. Hell, it isn’t what you need either.” She leaned forwards. “But I’m learning to take it one day at a time, Cas. So… maybe we can start building up to that. You know what I’m saying?”

He blinked, as if he needed a second or two to process what she’d said. The edge of his lips then quirked up, as if he wanted to smile, but he wasn’t quite sure if he should.

“Yes,” said. He stretched his hand and placed it on her cheek. “I think I do.”

His nose grazed against hers. Meg closed her eyes, waiting for the warmth of his lips…

The knock on the door startled them both. Meg might have cursed the grandkids of that plumber under her breath, even if he hadn’t interrupted them at such a crucial moment just because of what an asshole he was.

“No, that’s what it’s gonna cost to fix it, sir,” he said as soon as he took a look around the basement. “Unless you want me to put on some of the cheaper pipes, but that’s gonna get more costly on the long run.”

Castiel looked as if he was about to personally strangle this plumber, but he contained himself.

“Thank you. I’ll call you with an answer.”

Meg walked the guy to the door and then came back to the basement. Castiel was sat on the first completely dry step, staring at the mess in front of him with pure desperation in his face.

“There’s no way Naomi is going to approve that budget,” he sighed. Then he stood up, resolution hardening his features as he dusted off his jeans. “I’ll have to get the money some other way. It’s not too late to organize a Christmas raffle or something like that. I’m sure we can…”

“Can I make a suggestion?” Meg interrupted him. “Naomi administers your father’s finances and such, right?”

“His and my brothers’,” he explained.

“Still, he’s the one who ultimately calls the shots, right?”

“In theory.” Castiel frowned, clearly confused as to where she was going with all of this. “I don’t understand…”

“I say, cut the middle man, Clarence,” she stated. “Go straight to daddy dearest and tell him what happened here.”

The sole possibility of having to do that made Castiel’s shoulders slump noticeably.

“Oh, no, Meg. You don’t understand. He is… he is a most difficult man…”

“And you’re a coward if you don’t do this,” Meg said, bluntly. “You’re always talking about how people shouldn’t be afraid to ask for help, to open up…”

“This is different,” he insisted.

“How so?”

He lowered his eyes and refused to explain. But of course Meg was having absolutely none of that.

“Fine, then.” She crossed her arms above her chest. “Have the shelter closed on Christmas. I’m sure no one is going to be disappointed by that at all.”

“That’s a low blow, Meg.”

“Did it work?”

Castiel cringed and shook his head, almost looking like a small child about to throw a tantrum because he didn’t want to eat his veggies. But in the end, he nodded.

“I’m going to get my jacket.”

“Good. This should be fun,” Meg replied, smiling.

“You… you want to come with me?” he asked, his eyebrows shooting up with surprise.

“Sure. You look like you need back up,” she pointed out. “And besides, I’m dying to meet the illustrious… what’s your dad’s name, again?”

“Carver Edlund-Milton,” Castiel sighed. “He prefers Chuck.”

 

* * *

 

It didn’t take long for Meg to understand why Castiel was reluctant (to put it mildly) to speak with his father. First they had to take a cab into the most upscale part of town, with all the stores and malls and people dressed up nicely. Meg looked outside of the window and it dawned on her just how much her time in St. Michael’s had changed her. She looked at all those people and all she could do was wonder if they had ever worried a day of their lives about where they were going to sleep that night or if they would have a decent meal waiting for them when they got home.

It wasn’t that she had turned into Mother Theresa all of the sudden. It was just that she was more mindful of others now and well, wasn’t that the point of the punishment? For her to become an overall better person? If that was the case, then it had worked wonders.

She was still selfish in certain aspects, though. She held Castiel’s hand over the seat and he squeezed it in silence. Even when she knew that there were more pressing matters at hand, she was absolutely ready to re-start the conversation they had left hanging back in the shelter’s diner as soon as she had the chance.

For now, though, the taxi drop them off at a very tall building, with an elegant lobby and its own doorman, a short man with grey hair and a greasy smile. Meg shamelessly stared at him and his green uniform with silver buttons as Castiel explained to him who he was and why he was there. The doorman shook his head.

“I’m sorry. Mr. Milton has told me I am not to let anyone in, unless it’s someone he is already expecting.”

“He’s Mr. Milton’s son,” Meg said, frowning. “Can’t you make an exception?”

The doorman stroke his chin as if he was thinking about it very hard.

“Well, I’m sure we could reach some sort of agreement…”

Castiel sighed, took out his wallet and handed him a bill. The doorman quickly pocketed it and opened the door for them.

“Take the elevator to the right, it goes straight up to the penthouse,” he explained. “And if Mr. Milton isn’t happy to see you, I had nothing to do with any of this.”

Meg wondered if Mr. Milton knew that he was surrounded by people so easily blackmailed.

The way up to the penthouse was slow. Castiel started pacing around the small elevator, fidgeting with the helm of his coat until Meg grabbed his hands and squeezed it tight. He sighed and stopped moving for a moment, nodding to himself as the elevator stopped. It was as if he was giving himself some encouragement.

The door to the penthouse was big and menacing and Meg wondered what kind of man they were going to find on the other side. She was picturing a guy at least as tall as Castiel, in a suit, speaking in his hands free headset and giving instructions to an army of Naomis on how to move large sums of money.

That’s why she was more than a little shocked when the person who opened the door was a short man in pajama pants and a robe. He stood in the doorway, blinking at them, with his hair like a mess of curls and a several day’s beard. It took him a couple of second to speak.

“Oh, hello, Cas!” he said. He opened his arms as if he expected a hug, but when Castiel didn’t step forwards, he lowered his arms and let hang awkwardly at the sides of his body. “Umh… come in, come in. I wasn’t expecting you. Who’s your friend?”

“This is Meg, father.”

The cleanliness of the apartment contrasted greatly with its inhabitant’s appearance. Meg couldn’t imagine this man vacuuming the carpet or dusting off the chandelier, and that impression was confirmed when he gestured them towards the couch and started talking quickly:

“Nice to meet you, call me Chuck. You should have called me and told me you were coming! I would have asked Sierra to make some coffee or a cake or something like that so we could have a nice chat. But don’t worry about it, I think I have some sodas in the fridge? Or do you prefer water?”

He disappeared down the hall, still talking even though Meg and Castiel couldn’t really hear what he was saying. Castiel sat down on the couch and gesture for Meg to do the same.

“We’ve caught him off guard,” he explained. “He’s playing the gracious host.”

Meg thought there wasn’t much different between playing the gracious host and actually being one, but she didn’t have time to say so before Chuck returned with a plastic platter, a jar of water and three glasses. She did notice he didn’t pour the water for them as he sat on his armchair in front of them.

“I’m glad you came. You never come to visit me.”

“Well, I never know… I’m always busy,” Castiel said. Meg had the impression that wasn’t what he wanted to really say.

“Right, with your shelter. St. Raphael’s, was it?”

“St. Michael’s,” Castiel corrected with a sigh.

That was actually surprising. Castiel dedicated his every waking hour to the shelter and his father couldn’t be bothered to learn the name of the place? Meg decided to pour the water and pretend that she wasn’t even there.

“I actually came to talk to you about that,” Castiel said. “There was a problem this morning.”

He explained about the burst pipe, the flooded basement and the budget that the plumber had given to him. Chuck frowned as he sipped his water, as if he couldn’t figure out the reason Castiel was telling him all of this.

“Well, that’s not an issue. Just ask Naomi to transfer you the money for that.”

That wasn’t going well. Castiel bit the inside of his cheek, but he recovered enough to say:

“I did. I called her as soon as this happened and she told me she would ask you.”

“She hasn’t called me,” Chuck said.

“I imagined so. She didn’t really seem to grasp the urgency of the situation.”

To someone who didn’t know him all that well, his tone wouldn’t have revealed anything strange. Meg, who had been on the receiving end of his anger and exasperation when she was outright ignoring the rules of the shelter, could tell he was quietly seething.

Apparently, for all his aloofness, so did Chuck. He leaned forwards very slowly and settled his glass on the table.

“I don’t know what you expect me to do about that, Castiel,” he said. His tone was icy cold. “You told me you were having budgetary issues with the shelter and I assigned Naomi to help you with that specifically.”

“Yes, and she might have done too good a job, father,” Castiel replied. He had both hands on his knees and he seemed to be doing an exceptional effort to prevent them from trembling. “I didn’t want to bother you with these problems…”

“Then, why are you?”

The question came with such forcefulness, with such coldness, that both Meg and Castiel startled and did nothing but stared at the little man.

“Excuse me?” Castiel managed to ask in the end.

“Cas, I have done everything in my power to help you with this little project of yours,” Chuck continued. “The doctor said it would be good for you, you know? To get out of your head, to help the community and whatnot, but it wasn’t supposed to be going on for this long. You’ve turned it into a full time job and I don’t know if it’s benefitting you. You know what I’m saying? You just… abandoned everything else that was supposed to be your life to give handouts to complete strangers.”

“Perhaps because this is my life now, father,” Castiel replied. He was gripping on to his knees so tight his knuckles had gone white and his posture was tense, as if at any moment he would spring to his feet and ran out of the apartment. “I found something that I can do well. I’m sorry if it’s not exactly what you had in mind for me. And if I want to be honest with you, I don’t know why you’re so reluctant to help us out with it. What I’m asking for is pocket change for you, compared to Gadreel’s travels to discover himself or Michael’s Wall Street gambling.”

He moved back on the couch, as if he had said far too much and he was now regretting it. Chuck sipped from his water in silence, glaring at Castiel, his eyes narrowed so closely they were barely slits. He opened his mouth…

“Have you ever been to the shelter, Mr. Milton?” Meg asked.

Chuck’s eyes grew wide as they turned towards her, as if he had forgotten she was there at all.

“You… what?” He blinked, disconcerted by the question. “Why would I…?”

“What Castiel does there is so important,” Meg continued. “He doesn’t just give handouts. He helps people who are down on their luck, who need a helping hand. He saves lives, not just of the homeless people who go there to spend every night or have something warm to eat, but of the people who volunteer there too. He’s made a family out of these complete strangers.” She stopped and lifted up her chin. “And it’s not right for you to deride that just because you don’t understand it.”

Chuck stared at her, open-mouthed. He mumbled something unintelligible at the same time Castiel grabbed her hand and squeezed tight.

“Thank you for your time, father,” he said, standing up and pulling her up with him. “We’ll be in contact.”

They unceremoniously fled the penthouse and got into the elevator.

“Why did you do that?” Meg asked, surprised at Castiel’s reaction. “We could have convinced him!”

Castiel leaned against the wall for a moment and then burst into a nervous, loud laughter.

“Cas, you’re freaking me out a bit…”

He turned around, grabbed her by the hips and pushed her against the wall, his mouth inches away from hers.

“I don’t think anyone has ever talked like that to him,” he told her, putting a hand on her cheek and caressing her slowly with his thumb. “That was pretty amazing.”

“Oh, you liked that?” She wrapped her arms around his neck. “You think it changed his mind?”

“Absolutely not. He’s probably furious.” Castiel laughed again. “It doesn’t matter. It was worth it just to see the look on his face.”

Meg was about to ask what they were going to do about the burst pipe then, but when his mouth caught hers, it suddenly didn’t seem all that important. He pinned her against the wall, their legs tangling together as Meg ran her fingers through his hair, his hands sliding inside of her jacket…

They reached the ground floor far too soon. The door’s pinging surprised her more than she’d expected, mainly because she had completely forgotten anything that wasn’t him. The doorman was just outside and threw them a quizzical look. Meg could just imagine the spectacle they were, with reddened cheeks and messy hairs, out of breath because air didn’t seem all that important compared to kissing him.

“Umh, hello,” Castiel said awkwardly, still holding on to Meg’s hand. “Thank you for letting us go up. We’re leaving now.”

They escaped into the cold outside, laughing still as if there was nothing in the world that could touch them. They ran away from the building like mad people and stopped only when they reached a park nearby. The sky was dark grey among the naked, dead trees. The afternoon was quickly growing darker and colder, but Meg felt amazingly warm and exhilarated. They stopped by a long dark tree and Castiel pulled her in for a hug again.

“I have to confess something to you,” he said, his face very serious and close to her.

“What is it?” Meg frowned.

“You know how your train always comes first in the subway station?”

“Yeah, what about it?”

“Well, that’s because I don’t actually take the train there.”

Meg moved away, studying his face to tell if he was actually serious about it.

“What?”

“I wanted to have an excuse to walk with you,” he explained. “First, I was worried because of that time where I found you outside of the station and you were so upset. But then, I wanted to spend time alone with you.”

Meg put a hand on his shoulder, dumbfounded.

“So you’re telling me you’ve been walking to the wrong station every night? _For months?_ ”

He didn’t even seem guilty about it, even when he lowered his eyes to try and look like it.

“You said you don’t know how to take things slow,” he reminded her. “I never seem to know when to start something and I just keep stalling. But maybe between the two, we can find a pace that works for the both of us.” He put his hand on her cheek again and smiled. “Do you want to be my girlfriend?”

“Are you seriously asking me that?” Meg figured it would be rude to laugh in his face, but she figured it would be rude when he’d just poured his heart out to her. “What are we, middle schoolers?”

“Well, I don’t know how else to ask,” he said. He didn’t seem disappointed by her reaction, though. He was still looking at her with that unbearably goody smile on his face.

“You don’t ask,” she told him. “You… meet someone. And then you fall for them and they fall for you. And then you just… are. Together, I mean.”

“Ah.” He raised his eyebrows. “Well, I think we got that part right, didn’t we?”

Meg shook her head.

“Sometimes I can’t believe you’re real.” She sighed and hid her face on his neck. “Okay.”

“Okay, what?” he asked, and Meg couldn’t tell if he was messing her with or seriously asking.

“Okay, I’ll be your damn girlfriend,” she replied, exasperated. “Seriously, Cas…”

He shut her up with another kiss. The night fell above their heads, but they didn’t notice, too least in each other’s embrace to care.

 

* * *

 

The following day, there was a volunteers’ reunion at St. Michael’s that look a little more like a war council. Castiel stood in front of the troops and laid down what had happened, omitting the part about him and Meg visiting and lowkey insulting Chuck to his face. He explained that Naomi had said she’d include the money necessary to fix the pipes in the following month’s budget.

“The only way we’re going to have the shelter re-opened and in conditions to receive people will be if we make certain sacrifices.” He sighed and turned towards Claire, Alexis and Patience. “I’m sorry, girls. I’m afraid I’m going to have to use the money you gave me for the repairs.”

“Whatever you need to do, man,” Claire said, while Alexis and Patience nodded their agreement.

“The Christmas dinner is not cancelled, since we still have all the toys and clothes that were donated during the year. Though some of them might be water-damaged, so we need to check them all and get them ready” he continued. “Missouri, once again, I’m gonna need to ask you to work miracles with the food.”

“You don’t even have to say it,” Missouri replied and gestured rolling up her sleeves. “I’m gonna make this happen.”

“ _We_ are going to make this happen,” Castiel said. “What I do here, everything I try to do… I wouldn’t be able to do half of it or even any of it if it weren’t for every single one of you, for your time and your dedication. Whether you came here of your own accord… or not,” he added, glancing at Meg, “I need you to know that you’ve made a difference, for me and for the people who rely on us for help. And I just want to take this moment to thank you all for that.”

The room erupted in spontaneous applause. Castiel, of course, didn’t even try to hide the fact that he was tearing up. When he noticed, Dean slammed his hands on the table and stood up.

“Alright, everybody, we’ve got work to do! Come on!”

Meg stood up with everybody else, but just as she was heading towards the basement to retrieve all the toys and donations, Castiel grabbed her by the hand and put her closer to him.

“You know, this sort of thing might make people worried that we’re going to be unprofessional,” she told him, as she put an arm around his neck.

Castiel didn’t respond to her flirting.

“What are you doing here?” he asked, frowning at her.

“What do you mean? You love having me here.”

“No, I mean… Meg, today’s your last probation meeting,” he reminded her. “Shouldn’t you be on your way to that?”

Meg opened her eyes wide in horror and fumbled with her cellphone. She had quieted the notification and completely forgot about it.

“Shit!” she shouted. “Oh, shit!”

“Go!” Castiel told her with a chuckle. “You don’t want to be late.”

Meg ran out of the street and frantically signaled for a taxi. She took out a makeup mirror from her purse and tried to fix her face as quickly as she could. Luckily, she had bleached her hair again a couple of days before, so she didn’t look like a complete hot mess. The clothes she had chosen for that day, however, were not the greatest outfit: she had put on her jeans, a turtle neck sweater and her black leather jacket along with flat sneakers, because she hand planned on spending her day on her feet working at the shelter. If she’d had more time to change…

The taxi stopped in front of the Department of Correction and Meg had no more time to think about everything she would or should have done differently.

Cesar barely raised his eyes from the papers he was writing on when she approached his cubicle.

“You’re late,” he commented, and sipped from his plastic coffee cup.

“Yes. Sorry,” Meg muttered. She pulled the chair back and sat in front of him. “There was… traffic.”

Cesar hummed skeptically but opened the manila folder that Meg knew contained her file.

“Three hundred days of community service done and no violations to your probation terms,” he commented. “That I know of, of course.”

Meg thought about all the alcohol she had drunk during the first few months of her probation and how she had only really been completely sober for about two months (fifty three days, in fact) and how she had left the state for a weekend.

“I have been good,” she said, with a little shrug.

“It says here you’ve started treatment with a new therapist and that you’ve been accepted to community college,” Cesar added reading her file. “What are you studying?”

“Visual Media,” Meg explained. “I like movies. I’d like to learn more about how they are made and such. Barring that, it would help me develop a career in graphic design or photography.”

“And now that your probation is over, you can start sending CVs too,” Cesar pointed out.

“Yes, that'll definitely be fun.”

She immediately regretted the sarcastic tone in her voice, but Cesar just smiled at her. He turned the folder around and handed her a pen.

“Sign there and you’re a free woman.”

Meg’s hand trembled a little bit as she scribbled her signature. She had imagined that when that time came, she would be walking out of that building flipping everyone the bird, go to the nearest bar and invite everyone to a round.

So many things had changed it was hard to believe. Cesar seemed to be thinking the same thing, because he gave her a harsh look.

“Not many people are given the same chances as you, Meg,” he told her. “I expect you will do something with them. And that I don’t have to see your face again around here.”

“I hope the same thing,” Meg said.

The temperature had dropped again when she stepped outside. For a moment, she stood disconcerted underneath the grey daylight, not knowing exactly what to do with herself.

It had started snowing. Not a big storm or anything like that, just some flakes that spiraled down and landed on her shoulders and hair. She stretched her hand to catch one and held it there until it melted.

She then hailed a cab to head back to St. Michael’s. There was still a lot that she needed to do.


	13. Christmas Eve - Christmas Again

Meg had seen _It’s a Wonderful Life_ so many times she could recite the dialogue by heart. That was why she had curled up on the couch, with her head on Castiel’s lap and focused more on the sensation of his fingers carding through her hair than on the actual movie. Castiel, for whom the whole thing was new, sometimes forgot the fact that he was supposed to be paying attention to her when something particularly exciting or sad happened on the screen. By the end of the movie, he was bawling his eyes out.

"That was really special," he said when Meg stood up to get some tissues for him. "Thank you, Meg. Thank you so much."

"Why are you thanking me, you complete sap?" she asked, laughing. "It was just a movie."

Castiel blew his nose and shook his head.

"I understand now," he said, stretching his hand to take hers. "What you mean when you call me 'Clarence'. It's... I never thought... thank you."

"You're welcome," Meg said and moved to sit on top of his lap. "I have no idea what you're thanking me for, but you're welcome."

He chuckled softly against her neck and left a kiss on the edge of her lips.

Meg had been nervous the first couple of days after they decided to become "official", as they put it for everyone else in the shelter. Not because she had any doubts about Castiel's feelings or what he wanted for her and from her, but because she didn't think she had been "official" with anyone, not since high school, at least. And Castiel's track record with actual dating was even worse than hers, so between the two, she felt like they were clumsily stumbling into something they knew how to work in theory, but not in actual reality.

Castiel had calmed her down with an argument that was hard to debate:

"We know this is what we want, and for the time being, that should be enough. The rest, we have time to figure out."

Meg realized that he paraphrasing the "one day at a time" mantra and agreed to take it easy.

That didn't meant there hadn't been long conversations about what everything meant. They both decided it was best to leave their actual families out of this equation for the time being, but to their shelter family, they had no problem telling them what was going on. To Meg's slight disappointment, no one exchanged money or was particularly surprised. The gossip that Jo and Dean were going on a second double-date ("It's not precisely a double- date, we're just hanging out") with Sam and Castiel's friend from the other shelter, Eileen, had eclipsed the announcement of Meg and Castiel's relationship.

They also had agreed that they needed to talk about a day of the week when they could spend time together. Meg was looking for an actual job and though she was going to keep volunteering at the shelter, between that and her classes at the community college in the spring she was going to be very busy.

But that was a good thing, according toGabe. The busier she was, the less time she had to feel sorry for herself or to miss the booze. Focusing on other things, enjoying the way her life was going right now, was essential for her to find the balance she needed not to go back to that dark place she'd barely climbed out of. And if the ugly voices started whispering in the back of her mind again, well, she had learned ways to get them to shut up.

For now, she was just happy to be there, in Castiel's arms. Those last few days at St. Michael's had been particularly exhausting: the pipe had been fixed and the debris from the mess had to be cleaned up quickly. Then they'd had to hang all the Christmas decorations, wrap the gifts, help Missouri buy all the food she was going to need to make the dinner and get a new beard for the Santa Claus costume, since the previous one had been ruined in the basement's flooding.

But everything was done now, so Meg and Castiel had decided they deserved a quiet evening in for themselves. Meg didn't expect him to spend the night (except for that one time in July, he hadn't all the other times he had been there) but they'd had dinner and now the movie was over, and Castiel was still hugging her and nuzzling against her, showing no signs of wanting to leave despite how late it was.

She wasn't about to point that out to him. Even if he still wasn't ready for sex, the nights were long and cold and Meg wasn't about to complain if he decided to be her personal body heater.

After a moment, though, he moved away and smiled up at her.

"What would you change?" he asked him. "If you could have an angel like Clarence show up and say that you could change any moment from your life..."

Meg winced. Sometimes those questions were even more intimate that sex itself could ever be and that overwhelmed her a little. But that was part of letting someone share her life like that, wasn't it?

"I... I don't think I'd really change anything," she told him. "I know it's weird. I mean, this past year alone I have fucked up plenty of times, but I think I needed to make those mistakes to get where I am now, you know?"

"Yes," Castiel said. "I think, perhaps, I'd tell you certain things about me sooner. But other than that..."

"Oh, yeah?" Meg crooked an eyebrow. "Don't think I don't see how you're trying to sweet talk me."

"Do you like it?"

It was impossible to win with him when he was so earnest. Sometimes, Meg figured it was impossible to win simply because he played no games.

"Maybe," she muttered, kissing him again.

Castiel laughed against her mouth and gently pushed her down on the couch. He left a trail of kisses down her neck and across her collarbone and Meg slid her hands underneath his shirt. She closed her eyes…

A thought came flying down from the depths of her conscience and planted itself firmly in her mind. She really, really would have loved to banish it, especially with the way Castiel’s hands had found their way up her shirt and how his lips seemed to burn against her skin.

But she just… couldn’t.

“Actually… there is one thing,” she said.

If Castiel had kept kissing her and told her she could tell him all about it afterwards, Meg was certain she would’ve forgotten it. But as always, he sat down and stared at her with those intense blue eyes that made her feel like she could keep no secrets from him.

So she told him. About that night on Valentine’s Day, when Lucifer had assaulted her (it had taken a while for her to get used to describe it like that, but Gabriel had told her it was what happened and that was on him, not on her) and she’d wandered out of the club. How she’d been lost, cold and scared until a homeless man had found her, given her his jacket and guided her to the nearest subway station so she could go home. She’d told Castiel some things about that night, but never in that much detail.

She found herself having to fight back tears by the end of it. But Castiel simply wiped them away and ran his fingers through her hair to calm her down.

“Did this man tell you his name?”

“Rufus,” Meg said. “Rufus Turner.”

She didn’t think she would ever forget it. Castiel nodded and think about it for a moment.

“We could go looking for him.”

There were several things Meg could have said to that. It was late on Christmas Eve, it was snowing, she was very intoxicated that night, she didn’t even remember the name of the club and even if she did, there was no guarantee they could find a single man in the city streets. Maybe people didn’t know him and wouldn’t recognize the name. Maybe the name itself was fake. It would be like looking for a needle in a haystack.

The moment she turned back to look at him and realize he was completely serious, though, all of her doubts melted away. If someone could find and help Rufus, it would be him.

“Let’s do it.”

They called Dean and asked to borrow his car. He was reluctant at first and Meg couldn’t blame him (it was kind of out of the blue), but obviously Dean thought that they wouldn’t be asking if it wasn’t important, so he agreed in the end. In the meantime, Meg pulled up a map of subway stations in her phone and tried to remember how many stops had it been from the one near the shelter. There couldn’t have been that many if she had arrived early in the morning and ran into Castiel.

“In hindsight, I should have suspected you didn’t take that train,” she commented and Castiel laughed.

She couldn’t have explained it, but she felt just as euphoric as he did. Just being out there, doing something good, doing something to pay back Rufus’ kindness… it felt strangely exhilarating. She pinned down an area full of bars and clubs. They drove past the neon lights and the straggling party people who hadn’t come home yet, but after a while, they had to stop.

“I don’t remember any of these places,” Meg said, shaking her head. “I’m sorry.”

She probably would’ve given up then and there, but Castiel had experience looking for people who didn’t exactly have a home address.

“Most of them either have a shelter they regularly go to or they stay around in a zone they know. They probably have a job that requires them to be there on everyday basis.” He stopped and looked around the bar. “My guess is that our friend Rufus might collect bottles.”

They went through several bars. Later, Meg wouldn’t even remember being bothered by the smell of the alcohol, she was just that hyper-focused in finding this man. The bartender in the first one had just started working there and the second and third ones didn’t recognize Meg’s description of Rufus. They had more luck in the fourth one.

“That crazy guy? I always catch him going through our trash. I’ve told him not to come here anymore, but he never listens.”

It wasn’t the kindest of words and the bartender didn’t recognize the name, but it was a start. The fifth bar was the jackpot. They caught the bartender just as she was about to close.

“We’re looking for a man. He’s black, in his sixties, he maybe picks up bottles…”

“Oh, Rufus!” the woman said. Meg barely had time to get excited before the woman added: “I haven’t seen him these last couple of weeks, sorry.”

“Don’t despair,” Castiel said, grabbing Meg’s hand. “We’re getting closer.”

Meg was thinking about telling him that perhaps they should leave this for another day (most bars were closing, they had a Christmas dinner at the shelter tomorrow, they should probably just go home), but before she could say out loud any of her excuses, she spotted it.

At first it was just a shadow covered in so many coats it barely looked like a person. The bundle of clothes was leaning against the open trashcan, rummaging through the garbage with especial care, as if they were digging for treasure.

“Hey!” Meg shouted. She escaped from Castiel’s hand and walked towards them. “Hey!”

The bundled of clothes startled and jumped back, clutching an empty bottle of vodka against their chest.

“Come on, it’s just garbage! Why do you care?”

Meg was surprised to hear this young feminine voice, and even more surprised, when the bundle stepped into the light, to see how ragged the coat and fingerless gloves she was wearing were. Her face was covered by a grey hat and a scarf wrapped around her mouth and neck, so everything Meg could see were some big, dark eyes staring back at her with distrust.

“It’s not about that,” Meg told the girl, because she couldn’t be anything other than a young girl. “I have to ask you a question.”

The girl’s suspicion didn’t decrease, so Meg decided not to stop any closer to her, lest she’d run off without giving her an answer.

“Do you know a Rufus Turner?”

The girl’s entire demeanor changed. The tension in her posture disappeared as she reached for her scarf and pulled it down to reveal that she was, in fact, a very young girl with brown skin and eyes that had seen too much.

“Are you friends with Rufus?” she asked. “Can you help him?”

Meg didn’t like the tone of that question, but she said yes without a second of hesitation.

“What’s your name?”

“Kaia,” the girl said. “Kaia Nieves. Please. He’s been very sick…”

“Can you take us to him?” Castiel asked, stepping next to Meg.

Kaia guided them through semi-deserted and badly lit streets into a building that looked like it had been abandoned for ages. The windows were boarded and the door was nothing but a big piece of wood that Kaia moved aside herself. Meg and Castiel followed her into the darkness inside. The place smelled like dust and piss, but when Kaia grabbed a flashlight from the side and turned it on, it turned he had been made into a livable space, with a table and some chairs, graffitied walls and a squalid small pine that had been decorated with balls and broken off angels.

Two mattress that lied against a wall, as if they had thought that was the warmest place in a building that seemed about to collapse in on itself, and there was a bundle of blankets on top of one of them that shivered and wheezed, as if every breath was hard to take in. Meg approached it to find that indeed, there was Rufus lying underneath it, though he barely looked like the man that had helped her all those months before. He had lost weight and his were sunken. His beard had grown, perhaps because he no longer had the energy to shave it, and the eyes that looked up at her were glimmering with fever. He muttered something, but Meg couldn’t make out what it was as she knelt in front of him with Kaia.

“These people say they know you, Rufus,” Kaia told him. “They’re here to help.”

“How long has he been like this?” Castiel asked.

“Couple of weeks. We went to the ER when he first started coughing, but they wouldn’t take him in because it wasn’t life-threatening.”

Castiel clenched his jaw as if he had heard that story far too many times. Meg stretched her hand to touch Rufus’ forehead. It was extremely warm.

“Cas, we can’t leave him here,” she said. She didn’t expect her voice to come out so broken.

Castiel nodded and leaned down as well.

“Mr. Turner, can you hear me? I’m going to pick you up now. We’re going to take you to the hospital, okay?”

There was another mutter, but Meg thought she heard the word “… okay”. Castiel reached into the blankets until he found Rufus’ arm and placed it around his shoulders. With a grunt from the effort, he picked the old man up. Meg hurriedly placed some of the blankets over him so he’d be more protected when they faced the cold outside. Rufus stumbled and dragged his feet all the way to the car.

They must have looked like a caravan of crazy people when they stepped into the almost empty ER, or at least the nurse behind the desk certainly stared at them as if they were.

“Excuse me, sir…” she said, but Castiel simply plopped down the half-conscious Rufus on a chair and walked up to her.

“My name is Castiel Novak, I am the director of St. Michael’s shelter and soup kitchen,” he declared. “We will care for all the expenses of this man. He needs a doctor.”

The nurse opened her mouth and then shut it again, as if she wanted to find something to object but she simply couldn’t.

“I’ll… I’ll get the paper work,” she said.

Meg felt like she was going to burst into tears, as both she and Kaia tried to hold Rufus sitting up straight in the chair. Castiel was already in trouble, but he still offered to pay for Rufus’ expenses without a second of hesitation. She breached the topic to him a couple hours later, once the doctors had taken in Rufus for examination and Kaia fell asleep on the chair next to him.

“How do you even do it?” she asked him. “How do you go day after day, seeing all the bullshit in the world and you just keep… giving?”

Castiel smiled at her and held her hand tight.

“A man was walking on the shore and found a child that was hurling the stars that the tide had stranded on the beach back to the sea. He approached the child and told him ‘Why are you doing this? This won’t make a difference for the stars’. The child picked up another, threw back at the sea and said ‘It made a difference to that one’.”

“Is that from some shitty self-help book ala _Knight in Rusty Armor_?” Meg asked and Castiel laughed once more.

“It’s just something that I think about a lot. The differences we make might seem small to us, but they’re huge for some. Rufus made a huge difference for you, now you’ve made a difference for him.” He stopped and eyed Kaia’s sleeping form underneath his jacket. “Maybe we can make a difference for her too.”

Meg honestly hoped so. She didn’t know what that girl’s deal was, but…

“Goodbye, Hannah. Merry Christmas!”

“Merry Christmas!” the nurse that had admitted Rufus replied as she walked past them on their way to the door.

“Shit.” Meg looked at the hour in her cellphone (that was about to run out of battery). “It’s two in the morning.”

“Oh,” Castiel said, as shocked as she was. “Oh. Merry Christmas.”

Meg laughed and placed her hand on his cheek to give him a kiss.

“Happy birthday, Clarence.”

“Rufus Turner’s family?” a doctor called out.

Kaia sprang to her feet almost immediately. Meg and Castiel told him they were the “friends” who had brought him in and the doctor explained that it wasn’t anything “life-threatening”. A mild respiratory infection or maybe bronchitis. They had given some antibiotics to lower his fever.

“He’s sleeping now and visiting hours are way past. So I suggest you all go home and come see him again in the morning.”

“Can’t I stay with him?” Kaia insisted, despite just being told the contrary.

Meg put a hand on the girl’s shoulder.

“We’ll bring you back first thing in the morning,” Meg promised her. “You can crash on my couch tonight.”

Kaia was reluctant, but in the end she decided to trust them. She sat in silence in the backseat, with her head pressed against the window’s glass.

“So what’s your deal, kid?” Meg asked her.

“I’m not a kid!” Kaia replied. “I’m eighteen! So you can’t call CPS on me and you can’t make me go back to my home.”

“No one’s going to make you do that,” Castiel promised her. “We just wanted to know how you met Rufus.”

Kaia shrugged and suddenly she looked even smaller inside what Meg suspected were several coats stacked on top of one another.

“He took care of me,” she said simply. “He’s like a grandpa or a cranky uncle. Keeps me out of trouble.”

And really, they could deduce the rest. She had run away from home, found all her plans had fallen apart and she had found herself without a friend or anyone to trust. She was lucky it was Rufus who found her and not someone who wanted to take advantage of her. Meg shuddered at the thought of what could have happened to her if that had been the case.

“I’ll get you a pillow and some blankets,” she said when they arrived.

“Thanks,” Kaia muttered. By the time Meg returned, she was snoring over the cushions.

“She must have been really tired,” Castiel whispered.

“You think?” Meg chuckled softly and tuck her in before she walked up to her boyfriend.

Castiel looked at her with a soft smile and bright eyes. But suddenly something make him step back.

“I… perhaps I should go home. It’s late…”

“Yes, it is,” Meg said, throwing her arms around his neck. “And that’s exactly why you should stay. We have a lot to do tomorrow.”

“I…” Castiel started protesting, but Meg hushed him with a kiss.

He was probably remembering April. Kaia had reminded him of himself, for sure. And today being his birthday, he was probably thinking of how he had lost his virginity to that awful, abusive woman. Meg once again felt like she hated April, for all the things she had taken from him, for how much she had hurt him.

“We don’t have to do anything,” Meg told him. “Just sleep. Okay?”

Castiel sighed against her mouth.

“Okay.”

Meg grabbed him by the hand and gently pulled him towards her bedroom.

 

* * *

 

The next morning, he bought coffee and donuts for him and Kaia and dropped them off at the hospital before he went to return Dean his car. Kaia ran towards the front desk and then practically dashed through the hallways towards Rufus’ room, with Meg following her close behind.

Rufus was awake and eating his breakfast and already he looked much better than he had the night before.

“There you are, girl! Merry Christmas to you and happy Hanukkah to me,” he commented as Kaia wrapped him in a tight hug. “Come on, you’re not gonna tell me you were worried, were you, shorty?”

“Of course not,” Kaia said, though her red eyes and her hoarse voice indicated differently. She breathed in deeply and glanced away. “This is Meg. She and her boyfriends helped us.”

“Where do I know you from?” Rufus asked, narrowing his eyes at her.

As an answer, Meg extended the hoodie that he had given to her. Rufus snapped his fingers, remembering.

“You’re the lost girl! What was it, New Year’s Eve?”

“Valentine’s Day,” Meg corrected him. “I never had a chance to thank you.”

“Ah, no need. I’m always helping girls who have a knack to get themselves in trouble. That’s how much of a gentleman I am. Turns out it’s good for my karma, too, huh?”

He laughed at his own comment, but it soon devolved into a coughing fit. He hit his chest with a closed fist and shook his head when Kaia asked him if she needed to call a nurse.

“Doc said the coughing is going to stay for a few more days,” Rufus explained. “But do you mind getting me some water?”

Kaia left the room and it as if Rufus’ joviality vanished in thin air.

“Listen,” he said, turning towards Meg. “I know you’ve already done a lot more for me than you had to do, but can I ask you something else?”

“Yes, of course,” Meg said, without even thinking about it. Castiel’s habits were rubbing on her.

“The girl.” He jerked his head towards the door. “You gotta get her off the streets. Winter is already bad for old geezers like me who have been weathering it outside for years, but for her?” He shook his head. “She’s young. She can still make it. And besides, I got saved this time, but I don’t know how much long I’ve got before I go belly-up.”

“I don’t know, Rufus. You seem like you could still be kicking around for a long time,” Meg said. Rufus arched an eyebrow, skeptical. “Maybe we can get you both off the streets.” She searched inside her pockets and found the card that Castiel had given her. “Come to St. Michael’s tonight. We’re having a Christmas dinner and there’s always a warm bed for you to rest.”

Rufus shook his head.

“I don’t really like charity.”

“Well, we can put you to work once you’re feeling better,” Meg replied. “Trust me. There will be nothing charitable about it.”

“About what?” Kaia asked, as she entered the room again with Rufus’ water.

“Meg’s telling us we should visit her and her boyfriend for Christmas,” Rufus said, handing the card to her. “What do you say, shorty?”

Kaia looked down at the card and then up and Meg again. Before she smiled again, Meg already knew what she was going to say.

“I think that’ll be great.”

 

* * *

 

Meg stayed with them another hour before she left for the shelter. She walked briskly down the wet street, ignoring the few, weak flakes of snow that fell on top of her head and clothes. She smoked a cigarette to fight off the cold and stopped on the street across from St. Michael’s building, taking a few deep drags to finish it sooner.

The place still looked like a dumpster.

She stopped across the street from it and grimaced at the façade’s ugly grey and the faded letters. Of course, Castiel had prioritized every cent of their diminished budget for the shelter’s several urgent needs and she supposed that was important. But she was sure she could cajole several of the volunteers to throw in a buck or two so they could buy some painting and give the place a good make over.

After all, even if the inside was the thing that truly mattered, it wouldn’t hurt if the outside reflected all the warmth and kindness there was to be found in there.

Ellen spotted her from behind her desk and beckoned her to come. Meg threw her cigarette on the floor, stepped on it to turn it off and quickly walked inside of St. Michael’s.

“You’re late,” Ellen scolded her. Her stern tone, which Meg had found irritating the year before, now made her chuckle.

“Ellen, I really feel you should have learned by now that I’m not going to be hold back by such trivial constraints as being in time,” Meg replied.

“Meg’s here?” Castiel asked, popping his head out of his office’s door.

“Aye, captain.” Meg made a military salute. “Where do you want me?”

“Missouri needs extra hands in the kitchen.”

That was an understatement, of course. The kitchen was just as chaotic as it had been the previous year, if not more. Apparently, Ash and Garth had set something on fire and now everyone was rushing to clean up the mess while Missouri gave instructions in rapid succession.

“Max, you better not be putting your sticky fingers in the gravy! Patience, pay attention to those pots! Bring that here, Benny!”

Benny approached her with a bowl and Missouri tasted the mix with pure concentration in her face.

“Needs more brown sugar. Just a spoonful or two. Meg!”

Meg startled, because she had only just finished tying her hair up in the net and tying her apron. When did Missouri see her come in?

“Help Donna and Claire with those veggies. And you better not cut yourself like last year!”

“Yay, we’re chopping mates again!” Donna exclaimed as Meg grabbed a knife and came to help her.

“I feel like there are a thousand other ways you could have said that,” Meg said, rolling her eyes.

But her crankiness was just as fake as Ellen’s. She figured in a couple of hours she was going to need a cup of coffee to keep alert, but for now, she just told Donna about Rufus and Kaia.

“Oh, Jody can help with that!” Donna exclaimed. “Alexis moved to an in-campus dorm, so her room is free.”

“As if she didn’t have her hands already full with me,” Claire said, rolling her eyes.

“Excuse me?” a voice called.

Meg was surprised to see Kaia walking into the kitchen, because she could swear she hadn’t left the hospital that long ago. The girl had obviously showered and changed her clothes, and now was looking around a little flustered.

“I’m Kaia. Castiel told me you needed help here?” she said.

“Yes, thank you!” Missouri exclaimed. She looked like the exhausted director of an orchestra suddenly saved by the arrival of a new symphonic player. “Put on a hair net and help Kevin and Linda with the eggnog.”

Kaia waved at Meg as she went to do what she was ordered. Meg returned to her chopping, but not before noticing that Claire had stopped and was looking in Kaia’s direction.

“Perhaps having her around won’t be so bad,” she commented.

The day passed like a blur. At some point, Meg had enough of a respite to ask Kaia about Rufus and found that he was resting upstairs.

“He said that hospital food sucked and that there would be too much people on the streets later,” Kaia explained. “So we needed, and I quote, to get our asses here ASAP.”

“Does he ever stay still?” Meg asked, amused.

“Not that I know of,” Kaia giggled.

Jo burst into the kitchen at that exact moment.

“Oh, there you are!” she exclaimed. “You need to come to the basement!”

“What for?” Meg asked, frowning.

“You’re one of the elves.”

“What? No, I’m not.”

“Yes, you are. We picked your name out of the hat,” Jo said, matter-of-factly.

“I didn’t participate in that!” Meg protested, while Kaia laughed out loud.

“Everyone participates, and if you didn’t want to, you could have been here on time and ask us not to put your name in,” Jo replied, with a tone of voice eerily to Ellen’s. “Now let’s go, we need to see if the costume suits you!”

He grabbed her arm and dragged her out of the kitchen despite Meg’s complaints. She felt like she had to complain despite knowing it was useless. Even before Jo dragged her down the stairs, even before she threw the green dress, fake years and stripped stockings at her, Meg knew there was no point in resisting.

“Can I at least have some privacy?” she asked, eyeing at Dean, who was standing in from of the apparently changing booth they had improvised by hanging some sheets from a cable.

“Just a second.” Dean lifted up his phone. “Come on, Sammy, all the girls want to see you!”

“I hate you,” Sam said, but he did step away from the sheets just as Dean snapped a picture with his phone. Apparently, he had been drafted into the Santa scheme too, because he was wearing the red suit, the fake beard the fat suit. Since he was taller than Castiel, though, the suit didn’t quite covered his hands and it was short around the boots. He looked incredibly uncomfortable, but that was, apparently, all part of the fun.

“Perfect!” the older Winchester said. “I’m gonna send this to Eileen.”

“Dean, no!” Sam exclaimed, with pure panic in his voice while Alicia, Charlie, Jo and Alexis laughed. “I swear to God, Dean…”

“I’m sure she’s gonna love it,” Dean said, holding his phone away from Sam while he quickly pressed the send button on the screen. “Alright, Sammy Claus. Let’s get you out the back door so you can prepare your great entry.”

Sam sighed but followed Dean outside. He exchanged a tired look with Meg and she knew they were both thinking the same thing: why the hell did it have to be them?

The dress was little tight, but Meg could still breathe in it. She rolled up the thighs and stepped into the boots. As soon as she moved the curtain aside, she was greeted with the sound of several camera shutters clicking in her direction.

“That’s very funny,” she said as the girls checked into each other’s screen to see how their pictures had come out. “I’m gonna get back at every single one of you in the next prank war. Don’t think I’ll forget.”

“That surely be fun… where are you going?” Alicia asked.

“To show this to my boyfriend before any of you bitches send him the pictures.”

Their laughter followed Meg all the way up the stairs.

She found Castiel in his office, of course. It was as if the man just didn’t rest. He looked up and put his pen down when she opened the door.

“Well, hello, elf.”

“Don’t even,” Meg said. But she was smiling as she strutted inside and stood in front of his desk. “What do you think?”

“You look adorable,” he stated, standing up and going around his desk. “You must be the prettiest elf we’ve had in years.”

“Don’t let Alicia hear you saying that,” Meg replied as Castiel placed his hands on her hips.

“It’s the truth, though.”

“I have a present for you,” she told him. “I wanted to tell you before all the madness starts. It’s back at my place, so if afterwards you want to come back there…”

“Is it an actual present or is this just a ploy to cajole into being your personal body pillow again?”

“There is an actual present,” Meg affirmed. “But if you want, we can do the other thing too.”

She only realized how ambiguous it had sounded after Castiel stared at her with a crooked eyebrow. Before she could correct herself, though, he kissed her.

“Yes. Maybe we should try doing that.”

Meg had nothing to protest to that. She pulled him in to give him a proper kiss, fast and desperate and hot…

“Castiel.”

They both startled and broke away to see Ellen standing on the doorway, looking at the both of them disapprovingly.

“There’s a crowd at the door and Missouri says the dinner is ready.”

“Oh, good.” Castiel cleared his throat and ran his palm over an invisible crease on his shirt. “Let’s let them in, then.”

Meg thought she should go hide with “Sammy Claus” and whoever had the misfortune of being the other elf that year, but she wanted to see this. She stood on the side as Castiel opened the doors and watched in silence as he wished them a Merry Christmas. Some of the regulars shook his hand on the way to the dinner, some stop and looked at the Christmas decorations they had hanged the day before with eyes wide open.

“Hello, welcome. Come on in…”

“Mom, look! An elf!” a little girl exclaimed, pointing at Meg.

The mother tried to pull the little girl fast, but Meg leaned over and beckoned her closer.

“What’s your name, little girl? I’ll make sure to let Santa know you’re here.”

“Audrey!” the girl said. “I asked for a teddy bear.”

“You’ll get it if you’ve been good,” Meg promised her.

The mother thanked her with a smile and walked towards the diner. Meg had the impression there was more people than even last year. She wondered if Missouri had prepared for that and…

“Hello. I hope I’m not late.”

The voice stunned her just as much as it did Castiel. For a second, the both stayed very rigid, as if they couldn’t process what they were seeing.

Chuck stepped inside. With his jeans and a red hoodie over his head, he looked very inconspicuous, but still very far away from the millionaire Meg knew he was. He smiled and waved at the both of them, as if this was the most normal thing in the world for him to be doing.

Castiel recovered first.

“N-No,” he stammered. “You’re just on time.”

“Oh, good. I was worried…” Chuck said. It sounded like he was going to add something else, but changed his mind at the last second. He handed Castiel a small box wrapped in shiny gift paper. “Happy birthday, Cas.”

“Thanks, father.” Castiel still looked like he couldn’t quite process it all. “Umh… come inside. We’re about to serve the dinner.”

Chuck glanced around, as if he was a little worried of what he would find there, but in the end, he nodded and followed the last of the crowd as they headed in.

“Did I see that correctly?” Castiel asked Meg, alternating between looking at his father’s back and the present in his hand. “Is he really here? Why is he here?”

“Maybe his heart grew three sizes,” Meg said, shrugging. “You just have that effect on people, Clarence.”

Castiel looked at her and shook his head, still disconcerted. And really, all Meg could do at that point was stand on tiptoe and leave a peck on his cheek.

This was going to be a most interesting Christmas.


End file.
